A team of researchers affiliated with several institutions in China and one in the U.S. has found evidence that suggests as many as 30.8 million people suffered premature deaths in China over the years 2000 to 2016 due to breathing polluted air. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the group describes their study of air pollution levels in China and premature death rates for people with lung ailments and what they found.