Harvard researchers have concluded that Mexicans would live an average of two months longer if they breathed cleaner air, the Associated Press reported.
The study has found that some 7,600 people's lives have been cut short each year by diseases related to air pollution between 2001-2005, representing about 1.6 percent of annual deaths in Mexico.
The highest proportion of those deaths - 38 percent - were in the capital, Mexico City.
According to the study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Mexico's average life expectancy - 72.3 years for men and 77.8 for women - would be longer by 2.4 months if urban air quality were improved.
The researchers also studied the effect on mortality rates from the use of solid fuels, like coal and wood burning, and from unsafe water sanitation in Mexican homes.