C. Arden Pope III (BS ’78) finally gets to be the bearer of some good news. After years spent studying pollution’s toll on health, incriminating pollutants, and calling for tighter air-quality restrictions, the clouds are beginning to part: in January, the BYU economics professor and his Harvard colleague Douglas Dockery published findings in the New England Journal of Medicine showing that improvements in air quality from 1980 to 2000 have increased the life expectancy of the average American by five months. “Such a significant increase in life expectancy attributable to reducing air pollution is remarkable,” says Pope, the lead author on the study. “Not only are we getting cleaner air that improves our environment, but it is improving our public health.”
BYU Today