Research from Brigham Young University and Harvard School of Public Health now shows that the average life expectancy in 51 U.S. cities has increased nearly three years over recent decades and that about five months of this new lease on life can be linked to the fact that we’re breathing cleaner air. In the cities previously most polluted, the cleaner air added about 10 months to the average resident’s life.

“Such a significant increase in life expectancy attributable to reducing air pollution is remarkable,” said C. Arden Pope III, a BYU epidemiologist and lead author of the study. Cleaning up our air and keeping it clean is providing a substantial return on investment; it improves not only our environment, but our health, too.