This claim is unfortunately true. According to the State of Global Air, "Research shows that exposure to air pollution shortens the average person's lifespan by 1.8 years." Nowadays air pollution is everywhere and it's hard to escape it sometimes, especially in populated areas. With that being said populated areas that experience this include, "the Middle East; North Africa; and South, Central, and East Asia" to mention a few. Most of the pollution comes from power plants, vehicles, wildfires, etc. Since this article was published there has unfortunately been an increase in the amount of air pollution in the world.