Estimating health burden and economic loss attributable to short-term exposure to multiple air pollutants in China

Minghong Yao,Gonghua Wu,Xing Zhao,Juying Zhang

doi:10.1016/j.envres.2020.109184

Minghong Yao, Gonghua Wu + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2020.109184

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Abstract

Existing studies focused on the evaluation of health burden of long-term exposure to air pollutants, whereas limited information is available on short-term exposure, particularly in China. Air pollutant concentrations in 338 Chinese cities in 2017 were used to estimate the air pollutants related health burden which was defined as premature mortalities from all-cause, cardiovascular and respiratory disease as well as hospital admissions for cardiovascular and respiratory disease. Log-linear model was used as the exposure-response function to estimate the health burden attributable to each air pollutant. The value of statistical life and cost of illness methods were used to estimate economic loss of the premature mortalities and hospital admissions, respectively. The national all-cause premature mortalities attributable to all air pollutants was 1.35 million, accounting for 17.2% of reported deaths in China in 2017. Among all-cause premature mortality, contributions of PM2.5, PM2.5-10, NO2, SO2, O3 and CO were11.1%, 5.2%, 28.9%, 9.6%, 23.0%, and 22.2%, respectively. The national cardiovascular and respiratory premature mortalities were 0.77 and 0.21 million, respectively. About 7.8 million cardiovascular and respiratory disease hospital admissions were attributed to short-term exposure to all air pollutants. The economic loss of the overall health burden (premature mortality and hospital admissions) was 2065.54 billion Yuan, which was equivalent to 2.5% of the national GDP in 2017. The health burden and economic loss attributable to short-term exposure to ambient air pollutant are substantial in China. It suggested that the adverse health effects attributable to short-term exposure to air pollutant should not be neglected in China. In order to reduce the health impact of air pollution, each city should develop air pollution prevention and control measures based on existing scientific evidence.

Highlights

Existing studies focused on the evaluation of health burden of long-term exposure to air pollutants, whereas limited information is available on short-term exposure, in China
The health burden and economic loss attributable to short-term exposure to ambient air pollutant are substantial in China
It suggested that the adverse health effects attributable to short-term exposure to air pollutant should not be neglected in China

Summary

Introduction

Existing studies focused on the evaluation of health burden of long-term exposure to air pollutants, whereas limited information is available on short-term exposure, in China. Due to the rapid development of industrialization and urbanization, many cities in China have been experiencing severe air pollution. Adverse health effects of these air pollutants have attracted great public attention in China, and numerous studies have concentrated on estimating the health burden and economic loss associated with air pollution[1,2,3]. Health burden associated with air pollution can be divided into acute and chronic health burden caused by long-term and short-term exposure, respectively. Existing studies typically focus on the chronic health burden attributable to long-term exposure to air pollutants in China [2,3,4]. No study has been conducted to estimate the health burden of short-term exposures of PM10, SO2, NO2, CO and O3 at national level, and only one study has estimated the premature mortality attributable to short-term exposure to PM2.5 [5]

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