Outdoor air pollution in India is not only an urban problem

Urban outdoor air pollution in the developing world, mostly due to particulate matter with diameters smaller than 2.5 mu m (PM2.5), has been highlighted in recent years. It leads to millions of prema-ture deaths. Outdoor air pollution has also been viewed mostly as an urban problem. We use satellite-derived demarcations to parse India's population into urban and nonurban regions, which agrees with the census data. We also use the satellite-derived surface PM2.5 levels to calculate the health impacts in the urban and non urban regions. We show that outdoor air pollution is just as severe in nonurban regions as in the urban regions of India, with implications to monitoring, regulations, health, and policy.