To quantitatively assess the health benefits brought by the implementation of the Action Plan of Air Pollution Prevention and Control, we firstly analyzed the spatial and temporal changes of PM2.5 population-weighted concentrations over China from 2013 to 2017. The BenMAP model was used to analyze the differences in premature death between the PM2.5 baseline scenario in 2013 and the control scenario in 2017 in 338 prefecture-level cities nationwide, so as to quantitatively analyze the number of premature deaths in 31 provinces. The results show that compared with other provinces, the largest reduction in premature deaths due to the significant decrease of PM2.5 concentration occurred in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and its surrounding regions, and the environmental health benefits from air quality have been greatly improved. The results show that from 2013 to 2017 the population weighted PM2.5 concentration was decreasing year by year due to the significant decrease in PM2.5 concentration; Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, and the surrounding areas witnessed the largest reduction in premature deaths. In 2017, the number of avoided premature deaths in 280 prefecture-level cities nationwide increased, but declined in 58 cities. Taking the target value of the first phase of the WHO transition period (an annual average PM2.5 concentration of 35 μg·m-3) as the control scenario, it is estimated that the number of premature deaths in 2013 was approximately 101293, and in 2017 was approximately 41080. The implementation of the Action Plan helped to avoid approximately 60213 premature deaths. According to the method of 'willingness to pay', the monetary benefits are estimated to be approximately 54.97 billion yuan.
Keywords: BenMAP; PM2.5; air pollution prevention and control action plan; health benefit; premature death.