Yes, of course it is. That's pretty much the definition of "poor air quality".

Last 150 maybe? You'd certainly see the pollutants change.

Posted By: SteamyTeait is not all about CO2

Indeed, hence why we have CO₂e, but even that's an imperfect measure. It can be difficult to quantify the various negative impacts. For example, some on this forum advocate shifting as much of your electricity use to the wee hours as possible to reduce carbon emissions, but how do you weigh the impact of the increased actinide production against the reduced carbon emissions? And do you include all external costs in your impact metric, or just GWP?

Exactly, where does it end? Putting numbers on these things is a job for an actuary really.

Some external impacts you can measure (coal > NOx/SO₂ > acid rain > lost revenues in forestry) but some are a bit more nebulous. Things like high-level nuclear wastes are a problem. Nobody knows how much it'll cost to deal with them, because nobody's ever done it. I think we're in a slightly better place with air quality than that, but there's still some uncertainty about the exact impact of particulates IIRC. Plus we keep inventing new things that we have no idea of the long-term risks of (anybody know what happens when you breathe in nanotubes or graphene?)

These links contain information on anticipated reduction in life expectancy due to degradation of air quality.
http://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/78657/E88189.pdf

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:uu8VOxa-oFMJ:www.oecd.org/dataoecd/32/41/2053990.pdf+NOX+GHG+impact&hl=en&gl=uk&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESjVGKDw2cPCkWG5bt8YiVviqEWbpixZDQ9JpH7PnsYc09j3X304vPmFiWH858hTCk8Fx2-1_H5t7iVaECR2UV3WFajG1Gpm-VPFT7dsWk7-JJ0i9nciNmYHXSaCW-06ZdmYBvcV&sig=AHIEtbT3AKK7xWAU9ZqO2xqQgiEee47ZUA
The reports also detail variation in impact cost based on location of pollution source in the UK and that the value of statistical life (VOSL) confirms the deaths for younger people are valued far more than the older generation.
The reports indicate the pollution sources creating major input to air quality degradation and these surely warrant serious scrutiny to ensure hazardous pollution abatement in order to minimise impact on all from infants to elderly. It can be done but needs the will to do it.