Even low levels of air pollution can damage health, study finds

Despite the relatively clean air, the study found that nearly 8,000 Canadians were dying early each year from outdoor air pollution. Photograph: Robert McGouey/Alamy

A study in one of the cleanest countries in the world could help governments think about future ways to manage air pollution.

Abundant data from London’s infamous 1952 smog onwards tells us that breathing high concentrations of air pollution harms our health. This feeds into the 20th-century idea of targets for the quality of our air. However, the new study looked at the health harm from air pollution from another angle.