Environmental pollution, trade openness and the health of middle-aged and elderly people: an analysis of threshold effect based on data from 111 prefecture-level cities in China

China's rapid economic growth in recent decades has caused a growing problem of environmental pollution, which negatively impacts the physical and mental health of residents. In recent years, renewable energy has emerged as a promising solution to alleviate environmental pollution and improve residents' well-being. However, it is unknown whether renewable energy development can counterbalance the health impacts of environmental pollution. Therefore, we conducted a study using data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) to examine the impact of environmental pollution and renewable energy on the health of 20,694 residents. Our analysis showed that renewable energy development can partially offset the negative health effects of environmental pollution. Specifically, we found that a 1% increase in environmental pollution is linked to an average decrease of 0.0911% in physical health (PHY) and 0.0566% in mental health (MEN), whereas each 1% rise in renewable energy corresponds to an average increase of 0.2585% in PHY and 0.1847% in MEN. These positive effects apply to male and female residents, urban and rural residents, young and middle-aged adults, and people with low, medium, and high levels of education. These findings are significant for decision-makers striving to improve Chinese residents' physical and mental health by considering the specific impact of renewable energy and comprehensive environmental pollution.

BackgroundThe digital economy based on the internet and IT is developing rapidly in China, which makes a profound impact on urban environmental quality and residents’ health activities. Thus, this study introduces environmental pollution as a mediating variable based on Grossman’s health production function to explore the impact of digital economic development on the health of the population and its influence path.MethodsBased on the panel data of 279 prefecture-level cities in China from 2011 to 2017, this paper investigates the acting mechanism of digital economic development on residents’ health by employing a combination of mediating effects model and spatial Durbin model.ResultsThe development of digital economy makes direct improvement on residents’ health condition, which is also obtained indirectly by means of environmental pollution mitigation. Besides, from the perspective of spatial spillover effect, the development of digital economy also has a significant promoting effect on the health of adjacent urban residents, and further analysis reveals that the promoting effect in the central and western regions of China is more pronounced than that in the eastern region.ConclusionsDigital economy can have a direct promoting effect on the health of residents, and environmental pollution has an intermediary effect between digital economy and residents’ health; At the same time, there is also a regional heterogeneity among the three relationships. Therefore, this paper believes that the government should continue to formulate and implement scientific digital economy development policies at the macro and micro levels to narrow the regional digital divide, improve environmental quality and enhance the health level of residents.

The rapid pace of urbanization in recent years, accompanied by the tension between urbanization and environmental pollution as well as public health, has become increasingly prominent, potentially constraining the normal pace of urbanization development, environmental sustainability and public health enhancement. This paper aims to clarify the relationship between new urbanization, environmental pollution and public health from both local and spatial perspectives, using a spatial Durbin model and a mediating effects model based on panel data from 275 prefecture-level cities in China from 2011 to 2020 and to test the existence of regional heterogeneity with a sub-sample of three major regions: eastern, central and western China. After incorporating environmental pollution as a variable across the entire scope of China, it was found that the new-type urbanization was related to public health in a ‘positive U-shaped’ form in terms of both local and spatial spillover effects (β2 = 14.5620, β3 = −17.8938, p < 0.05; θ2 = 19.2527, θ3 = −29.0973, p < 0.1) and environmental pollution exerts a negative impact on public health (β1 = 6.3704, θ1 = 2.5731, p < 0.05). A “reverse U-shaped” local effect was observed between new-type urbanization and environmental pollution (β2 = 0.6281, β3 = −0.5315, p < 0.05). Environmental pollution plays a partially mediating role in the impact mechanism of new-type urbanization on public health. There was regional heterogeneity in the relationship between new-type urbanization, environmental pollution and public health. The empirical results for the western regions and the whole of China were generally consistent, but the differences were significant between the eastern and central regions. In the eastern region, new-type urbanization and public health were related in an ‘inverted U-shaped’ form from the perspective of local and spatial spillover effect, and in the central region, there was an ‘inverted U-shaped’ form from the perspective of local effect. There was a threshold effect relationship between new-type urbanization and environmental pollution and between new-type urbanization and public health. At the same time, there was regional heterogeneity in the relationships between the three. Therefore, this paper argues that governments should formulate scientific urban planning and sustainable development policies that take into account the actual situation of each region and aim to promote sustainable urbanization, environmental quality and public health as a whole.

The impact of trade openness on environment is of increasing concern to environmental practitioners, industrialists, and researchers. Unlike previous studies that only focus on the impact of trade openness on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, this study explores the relationship between trade openness and carbon productivity. To this end, we construct a dynamic nonlinear panel model using a panel sample of 76 countries for the period 1990–2021. Furthermore, we conduct a mediation effect analysis to examine the underlying impact mechanisms between trade openness and carbon productivity. Finally, by dividing the total sample into four subsamples, we analyse possible regional heterogeneity in trade openness and carbon productivity relationship. The empirical results show that: (1) Trade openness has a significant impact on carbon productivity, with a U-shaped relationship between the two variables. In other words, carbon productivity first declines and then rises after a certain threshold level of trade openness is reached. (2) Energy intensity and energy consumption structure are two important mediators between trade openness and carbon productivity. (3) The impact of trade openness on carbon productivity is heterogeneous across countries. Based on the main findings, we propose several policy implications to improve trade quality as well as global carbon productivity.

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of trade openness and foreign direct investment (FDI) on wages in China using a panel data set of 27 manufacturing sectors over the period of 2001 to 2016. The effects are separated into three groups: total industries, capital-intensive industries and labor-intensive industries.
 
 First, by comparing the determinants of three groups of industries, it shows that the impact of trade openness on wages only significant and positive in labor-intensive industries while the impact of FDI on wages is significantly positive in both capital-intensive industries and labor-intensive industries. Second, in the case of total industries, trade openness and FDI are insignificant to wages. Labor productivity, research and development (R&D) expenditure, the proportion of skilled workers to total skilled and unskilled worker are significantly positive to wages. In contrast, the proportion of female workers to total employment and the proportion of state-owned enterprises to total enterprises are significantly negative to wages. Third, for capital-intensive industries, the impact of trade openness on wages is insignificant while the impact of FDI is significantly positive on wages. Moreover, labor productivity, R&D expenditure and the proportion of skilled workers to total skilled and unskilled workers are significantly positive to wages. Finally, for labor-intensive industries, the impact of trade openness and FDI are both significantly positive to wages. Furthermore, labor productivity, R&D expenditure and the proportion of skilled workers to total skilled and unskilled workers are significantly positive to wages. However, the proportion of female workers to total employment and the proportion of state-owned enterprises to total enterprises are significantly negative to wages.
 
 Last but not least, the results imply that the benefits of trade and investment policies of China on industrial wages should be made more inclusive to all types of industries, either capital or labor-intensive industries.

Can urban land market reform mitigate industrial emissions? Environmental evidence from 257 prefecture-level cities in China

Research on the direct and indirect effects of environmental regulation on environmental pollution: Empirical evidence from 253 prefecture-level cities in China

One of the most significant public health issues in rural China is how to improve the mental health of middle-aged and older individuals. Using 2013, 2015, and 2018 CHARLS panel data, this paper properly examined the effects of Internet use on the mental health of middle-aged and elderly people in rural China based on the difference-in-differences method. The findings are as follows: (1) Internet use effectively improves the mental health status of middle-aged and elderly people in rural China; (2) compared to the middle-aged group, Internet use has a more obvious effect on the mental health of the elderly; (3) further analysis showed that reading news, watching videos, and playing games online could significantly improve the mental health status of middle-aged and elderly people in rural China, while chatting online and other Internet activities cannot significantly improve mental health status; and (4) playing games, watching videos, and reading news have different effects on the mental health of middle-aged and elderly people in rural China. The results indicate that playing games have a better effect on depression levels than watching videos. In contrast, watching news had the lowest effect on depression levels among middle-aged and elderly people in rural China. The results of this study also show the latest evidence that Internet use can help China’s rural middle-aged and elderly populations to reduce social isolation, establish new social connections, gain social support, and, ultimately, achieve active ageing. Therefore, promoting multiple forms of interaction is an effective path to prevent loneliness, which has become the new policy direction of the government to create an age-friendly Internet environment using various measures in the future to eliminate the barriers to Internet access affecting the middle-aged and elderly in rural China.

<p>To find out the relationship between industrial agglomeration and environmental pollution, this paper carried out empirical research on the panel data collected from 271 prefecture-level cities in China from 2004 to 2017 through a spatial panel econometric model. It reviewed the influence of agglomeration externality on environmental pollution. The results detected an inverted "U"-shaped relationship between manufacturing industry agglomeration and environmental pollution nation-wide. The manufacturing industry agglomeration level at the inflection point was 0.652, suggesting that prefecture-level cities suffered severe environmental pollution problems. At the regional level, the manufacturing industry agglomeration in eastern and western China had a significant adverse effect on environmental pollution. In the central China, the relationship between manufacturing industry agglomeration and pollution was "N" -shaped. The manufacturing industry agglomeration levels in most prefecture-level cities were between the two inflection points. The environmental pollution aggravated as the manufacturing industry agglomeration level rose in the range. As for cities in the northeastern region, manufacturing industry agglomeration has no direct causal relationship with environmental pollution.</p>

Proprioceptive input may greatly affect postural stability. However, the proprioceptive postural strategy in elderly, middle-aged, and young people has not been investigated sufficiently. Hence, in this study, we aimed to investigate differences in proprioceptive postural strategies of elderly, middle-aged, and young people. The center of pressure displacement was determined in 23 elderly, 23 middle-aged, and 23 young people during upright stance on a balance board with their eyes closed. Vibratory stimulations at 30, 60, and 240 Hz were applied to the lumbar multifidus (LM) and gastrocnemius (GS) muscles to evaluate the contributions of different proprioceptive signals used in balance control. Compared with middle-aged and young people, elderly people showed a high dependence on postural control of the GS at 30 Hz (p-values: Young and elderly: 0.033; middle-aged and elderly: 0.001). Moreover, compared with young people, elderly people were more dependent on postural control of the LM at 240 Hz (p = 0.016). There were no significant differences with respect to the GS at 60 and 240 Hz, and with respect to the LM at 30 and 60 Hz between the elderly, young, and middle-aged people. Thus, the postural control strategy of elderly people depends on the GS at 30 Hz.

This paper aims to systematically explore the impact of renewable energy consumption, trade openness, industrialization, and urbanization on economic growth and carbon emissions while considering the different development levels of 122 countries over the period 1998–2018. Pesaran CD test, CIPS unit root test, Pedroni cointegration test, fully modified ordinary least square (FMOLS) estimation, Dumitreschu–Hurlin causality test and DOLS robustness test are adopted. The results show that trade openness has different effects on economic growth and carbon emissions across different income groups. Specifically, the impact of trade openness on economic growth in high- and low-income countries is positive, while trade openness has a negative impact on economic growth in middle-income countries. Meanwhile, the impact of trade openness on carbon emissions supports the pollution haven hypothesis. Urbanization promotes economic growth in all income countries, and increases carbon emissions in countries of all income groups except high-income countries. Renewable energy consumption promotes economic growth and curbs carbon emissions, while industrialization increases economic growth and carbon emissions. Further findings show a one-way causality from trade openness to renewable energy consumption. Finally, some targeted recommendations are provided for countries with different development stages.

To investigate the association between diabetes symptoms and physical activity (PA) levels among middle-aged and older Chinese adults. Data for this study were obtained from 2018 Charles data. Z test, logistic regression analysis, and linear hierarchical regression analysis were performed in 5352 individuals aged ≥50 years with complete information. In terms of diabetes, 6.8% of the middle-aged and elderly people with diabetes were detected, and 93.2% of the middle-aged and elderly people without diabetes symptoms. The proportion of middle-aged and elderly people with high PA levels was 50.5%, and the proportion of middle-aged and elderly people with low PA was 49.5%. There was a significant positive correlation between low PA and diabetes (P < .05). After adjusting demographic characteristics (gender, registered permanent residence type, education level, age, widowhood) and health status characteristics (poor mood, asthma, hyperlipidemia, disability, memory disease, self-assessment of health status, hypertension, smoking, stroke, depression), there was still a statistical significance between PA level and diabetes (P < .05). The risk of diabetes of middle-aged and elderly people in China increases with age, while the risk of diabetes of middle-aged and elderly people with low level of PA is higher. The risk of diabetes is high among middle-aged and elderly people who are old, have poor self-evaluation health, suffer from hyperlipidemia, memory disease, and asthma. The middle-aged and old people should increase their PA levels to prevent and improve diabetes.

Depression and sleep duration: findings from middle-aged and elderly people in China.

For more than 25 years, scientists all over the world are involved in studies on health effects of environmental pollution. These studies had become necessary by heavy air pollution in big cities and industrialized regions during the fifties. The level of an already high environmental pollution further increased during smog situations inhibiting transport and diffusion of air pollutants in the atmosphere. In those periods, concentrations of sulfur dioxide and particulates rose to values in the range of today’s maximal threshold limits for working places (5 and 6 mg/m3, respectively). During these smog episodes a dramatic increase of mortality was observed, especially in patients suffering from cardiovascular and lung diseases and in elderly people.

Disruption of iron homeostasis and resultant health effects upon exposure to various environmental pollutants: A critical review