Increases in ozone-related mortality in China over 2013-2030 attributed to historical ozone deterioration and future population aging

Lei Chen; Hong Liao; Jia Zhu; Ke Li; Yang Bai; Xu Yue; Yang Yang; Jianlin Hu; Meigen Zhang

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.159972

Increases in ozone-related mortality in China over 2013-2030 attributed to historical ozone deterioration and future population aging

Sci Total Environ. 2023 Feb 1;858(Pt 3):159972. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.159972. Epub 2022 Nov 8.

Authors

Lei Chen¹, Hong Liao², Jia Zhu³, Ke Li³, Yang Bai³, Xu Yue³, Yang Yang³, Jianlin Hu³, Meigen Zhang⁴

Affiliations

¹ Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Atmospheric Environment Monitoring and Pollution Control, Jiangsu Collaborative Innovation Center of Atmospheric Environment and Equipment Technology, School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing 210044, China; State Key Laboratory of Atmospheric Boundary Layer Physics and Atmospheric Chemistry, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100029, China; State Environmental Protection Key Laboratory of Sources and Control of Air Pollution Complex, Beijing 100084, China.
² Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Atmospheric Environment Monitoring and Pollution Control, Jiangsu Collaborative Innovation Center of Atmospheric Environment and Equipment Technology, School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing 210044, China. Electronic address: hongliao@nuist.edu.cn.
³ Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Atmospheric Environment Monitoring and Pollution Control, Jiangsu Collaborative Innovation Center of Atmospheric Environment and Equipment Technology, School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing 210044, China.
⁴ State Key Laboratory of Atmospheric Boundary Layer Physics and Atmospheric Chemistry, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100029, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.

PMID: 36356763
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.159972

Abstract

We systematically examine historical and future changes in premature respiratory mortalities attributable to ozone (O₃) exposure (O₃-mortality) in China and identify the leading cause of respective change for the first time. The historical assessment for 2013-2019 is based on gridded O₃ concentrations generated by a multi-source-data-fusion algorithm; the future prediction for 2019-2030 uses gridded O₃ concentrations projected by four Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) models under three Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSP) scenarios. During 2013-2019, national annual O₃-mortality is 176.3 thousand (95%CI: 123.5-224.0 thousand) averaged over 2013-2019 with an increasing trend of 14.1 thousand yr^-1 (95%CI: 10.2-17.4 thousand yr^-¹); sensitivity experiments show that the O₃-mortality varies at a rate of +12.7 (95%CI: 9.2-15.6), +5.8 (95%CI: 4.0-7.4), +1.0 (95%CI: 0.7-1.2), -5.4 (95%CI: -6.9 to -3.7) thousand yr^-1, owing to changes in O₃ concentration, population age structure, population size, mortality rate for respiratory disease, respectively. The deterioration of O₃ air quality, shown as significant increase in O₃ concentration, is identified as the primary factor which contributes 90.1 % of 2013-2019 O₃-mortality rise. Compared with O₃-mortality estimated in this study, the widely-used O₃-mortality assessment method based on urban-site-dominant O₃ measurements generates close national O₃-mortality but overestimates (underestimates) provincial O₃-mortality in coastal (central) provinces. From 2019 to 2030, national O₃-mortality is projected to increase by 50.4-103.7 thousand under different SSP scenarios. The change in age structure (i.e. population aging) alone will result in significant O₃-mortality rises of 137.9-160.5 thousand. Compared with 2013-2019 rapid O₃ increase (+2.5 μg m^-3 yr^-1 at national level), O₃ concentrations are projected to increase at a lower rate (+0.4 μg m^-3 yr^-1 in SSP5-8.5) or even decrease (-0.7 μg m^-3 yr^-1 in SSP1-2.6) from 2019 to 2030. Therefore, population aging, in place of O₃ air quality deterioration, will become the leading cause of future O₃-mortality rises during the coming decade.

Keywords: Health burden; Historical and future change; Long-term exposure; Ozone air quality; Population aging.

MeSH terms

China / epidemiology
Ozone* / adverse effects

Substances

Ozone