Quantifying regional consumption-based health impacts attributable to ambient air pollution in China

Yanxia Zhang; Shen Qu; Jing Zhao; Ge Zhu; Yanxu Zhang; Xi Lu; Clive E Sabel; Haikun Wang

doi:10.1016/j.envint.2017.12.021

Quantifying regional consumption-based health impacts attributable to ambient air pollution in China

Environ Int. 2018 Mar:112:100-106. doi: 10.1016/j.envint.2017.12.021. Epub 2017 Dec 22.

Authors

Yanxia Zhang¹, Shen Qu², Jing Zhao³, Ge Zhu³, Yanxu Zhang⁴, Xi Lu⁵, Clive E Sabel⁶, Haikun Wang⁷

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Pollution Control and Resource Reuse, School of the Environment, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, China; Key Laboratory of Soil Environment and Pollution Remediation, Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 210008, China.
² School for Environment and Sustainability, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1041, USA.
³ State Key Laboratory of Pollution Control and Resource Reuse, School of the Environment, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, China.
⁴ John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA; School of Atmospheric Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China.
⁵ School of Environment and State Key Joint Laboratory of Environment Simulation and Pollution Control, Tsinghua University, Beijing 10084, China; State Environmental Protection Key Laboratory of Sources and Control of Air Pollution Complex, Beijing 100084, China.
⁶ Department of Environmental Science, Aarhus University, 4000 Roskilde, Denmark.
⁷ State Key Laboratory of Pollution Control and Resource Reuse, School of the Environment, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, China. Electronic address: wanghk@nju.edu.cn.

PMID: 29268157
DOI: 10.1016/j.envint.2017.12.021

Abstract

Serious air pollution has caused about one million premature deaths per year in China recently. Besides cross-border atmospheric transport of air pollution, trade also relocates pollution and related health impacts across China as a result of the spatial separation between consumption and production. This study proposes an approach for calculating the health impacts of emissions due to a region's consumption based on a multidisciplinary methodology coupling economic, atmospheric, and epidemiological models. These analyses were performed for China's Beijing and Hebei provinces. It was found that these provinces' consumption-based premature deaths attributable to ambient PM_2.5 were respectively 22,500 and 49,700, which were 23% higher and 37% lower than the numbers solely within their boundaries in 2007. The difference between the effects of trade and trade-related emissions on premature deaths attributable to air pollution in a region has also been clarified. The results illustrate the large and broad impact of domestic trade on regional air quality and the need for comprehensive consideration of supply chains in designing policy to mitigate the negative health impacts of air pollution across China.

Keywords: Air pollution; China; Public health; Trade.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Air Pollutants / analysis
Air Pollution / analysis*
Air Pollution / statistics & numerical data*
China / epidemiology
Humans
Mortality, Premature / trends*
Particulate Matter / analysis

Substances

Air Pollutants
Particulate Matter