The Association Between PM2.5 and Depression in China

Guangye He; Yunsong Chen; Senhu Wang; Yiqun Dong; Guodong Ju; Buwei Chen

doi:10.1177/1559325820942699

The Association Between PM_2.5 and Depression in China

Dose Response. 2020 Jul 17;18(3):1559325820942699. doi: 10.1177/1559325820942699. eCollection 2020 Jul-Sep.

Authors

Guangye He¹, Yunsong Chen², Senhu Wang³, Yiqun Dong¹, Guodong Ju¹, Buwei Chen⁴

Affiliations

¹ School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China.
² The Johns Hopkins University-Nanjing University Center for Chinese and American Studies, Nanjing, China.
³ University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom.
⁴ The First Affiliated Hospital with Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China.

Abstract

While China has been experiencing unprecedented economic growth, depression is becoming one of the most striking social and mental health problems in recent years. Such a paradox to progress may partially be due to the notoriously poor air quality of the country. To verify this argument, we constructed an index of the prevalence of depression (IPD) using internet search query volumes in Baidu to proxy the potential depression and examined how IPD is associated with PM_2.5, the major air pollutant in China. Our results from 2-way fixed effects models reveal that a 100 μg·m^-3 increase in previous week's PM_2.5 in a city is significantly associated with 0.279 increase in its IPD, comparable to 7.34 hours decrease in weekly daylight, and such relationship is particularly pronounced in the spring and summer and in East and South areas. Our findings of large-scale pattern suggest that PM_2.5 at current levels in China poses serious mental health risks.

Keywords: Baidu index; China; PM2.5; depression; internet search query volumes.