About 350,000 to 500,000 premature deaths occur in China every year due to outdoor air pollution, according to a report by 21st Century Business Herald on Tuesday.

Chen Zhu, president of Chinese Medical Association and academician at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, wrote an article titled “China tackles the health effects of air pollution” with several partners that was published in The Lancet magazine on Dec 14, 2013. The team gave its estimation in the article.

The tally is much lower than the figure of 1.2 million people provided by a separate article published in the magazine on Dec 14, 2012.