(TIME) Alexandra Sifferlin, November 6, 2017 — In one of the most extensive reports of its kind, environmental health experts have estimated that nine million premature deaths worldwide—16% of all deaths—were linked to pollution in 2015, with the majority of deaths coming from air pollution.

The new study, published in the journal The Lancet and written by more than 40 international health and environmental experts, uses data from the the Global Burden of Disease, an international study that examines trends across populations and estimates mortality from major diseases and their causes. To estimate the number of people who died from pollution-related causes, it looked at the effects of air pollution, or air contaminated with things like gases and the burning of wood, charcoal and coal; water pollution, which includes contamination by things like unhygienic sanitation; and workplace pollution, where employees are exposed to toxins and carcinogens like coal or asbestos.

Source: Pollution: Air and Water Pollution Are Killing Millions of American