Acute and chronic health impacts of PM2.5 in China and the influence of interannual meteorological variability

Wang, Yuanlin; Wild, Oliver; Chen, Huansheng; Gao, Meng; Wu, Qizhong; Yi, Qing; Chen, Xueshun; Wang, Zifa

doi:10.1016/j.atmosenv.2020.117397

Cited by 30 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 60 publications

(68 reference statements)

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“…Mortality attributable to acute exposure to PM 2.5 has also been found to be much smaller than mortality attributable to chronic exposure. Even in China, where the haze episodes are severe, mortality attributable to acute exposure was an order of magnitude smaller (38). Finally, the incidence of nonfatal outcomes attributable to PM 2.5 is higher, but an analysis of the benefits of the Clean Air Act from 1990 to 2020 attributes over 90% of the estimated monetized benefits in 2020 to PM 2.5 -attributable mortality (11).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Health benefits of decreases in on-road transportation emissions in the United States from 2008 to 2017

Choma

Evans

Gómez-Ibáñez³

et al. 2021

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Decades of air pollution regulation have yielded enormous benefits in the United States, but vehicle emissions remain a climate and public health issue. Studies have quantified the vehicle-related fine particulate matter (PM2.5)-attributable mortality but lack the combination of proper counterfactual scenarios, latest epidemiological evidence, and detailed spatial resolution; all needed to assess the benefits of recent emission reductions. We use this combination to assess PM2.5-attributable health benefits and also assess the climate benefits of on-road emission reductions between 2008 and 2017. We estimate total benefits of $270 (190 to 480) billion in 2017. Vehicle-related PM2.5-attributable deaths decreased from 27,700 in 2008 to 19,800 in 2017; however, had per-mile emission factors remained at 2008 levels, 48,200 deaths would have occurred in 2017. The 74% increase from 27,700 to 48,200 PM2.5-attributable deaths with the same emission factors is due to lower baseline PM2.5 concentrations (+26%), more vehicle miles and fleet composition changes (+22%), higher baseline mortality (+13%), and interactions among these (+12%). Climate benefits were small (3 to 19% of the total). The percent reductions in emissions and PM2.5-attributable deaths were similar despite an opportunity to achieve disproportionately large health benefits by reducing high-impact emissions of passenger light-duty vehicles in urban areas. Increasingly large vehicles and an aging population, increasing mortality, suggest large health benefits in urban areas require more stringent policies. Local policies can be effective because high-impact primary PM2.5 and NH3 emissions disperse little outside metropolitan areas. Complementary national-level policies for NOx are merited because of its substantial impacts—with little spatial variability—and dispersion across states and metropolitan areas.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Health benefits of decreases in on-road transportation emissions in the United States from 2008 to 2017

Choma

Evans

Gómez-Ibáñez³

et al. 2021

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…A few of uncertainties exist with our estimation of health impacts, which are also recognized in a couple of similar studies (Liu et al, 2016; Maji et al, 2018; Y. Wang et al, 2020). First and foremost, there exists uncertainties with the parameters (e.g., concentration‐response coefficient, threshold concentration) used in the integrated exposure‐response function.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 80%

“…For example, Maji et al (2018) estimates PM 2.5 ‐related long‐term premature mortality for 161 cities in China for year 2015 as well as the potential health benefits of air pollution control policies for year 2020. Y. Wang et al (2020) calculate the number of premature death due to acute and chronic exposure of ambient PM 2.5 in China during 2013–2017. With substantial reductions in PM 2.5 concentrations due to COVID‐19 lockdown, a follow‐up question is what are the health impacts of the short‐term changes in air quality.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Silver Lining of COVID‐19: Estimation of Short‐Term Health Impacts Due to Lockdown in the Yangtze River Delta Region, China

Huang

Liu

et al. 2020

GeoHealth

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The outbreak of COVID-19 in China has led to massive lockdowns in order to reduce the spread of the epidemic and control human-to-human transmission. Subsequent reductions in various anthropogenic activities have led to improved air quality during the lockdown. In this study, we apply a widely used exposure-response function to estimate the short-term health impacts associated with PM 2.5 changes over the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) region due to COVID-19 lockdown. Concentrations of PM 2.5 during lockdown period reduced by 22.9% to 54.0% compared to pre-lockdown level. Estimated PM 2.5related daily premature mortality during lockdown period is 895 (95% confidential interval: 637-1,081), which is 43.3% lower than pre-lockdown period and 46.5% lower compared with averages of 2017-2019. According to our calculation, total number of avoided premature death aassociated with PM 2.5 reduction during the lockdown is estimated to be 42.4 thousand over the YRD region, with Shanghai, Wenzhou, Suzhou (Jiangsu province), Nanjing, and Nantong being the top five cities with largest health benefits. Avoided premature mortality is mostly contributed by reduced death associated with stroke (16.9 thousand, accounting for 40.0%), ischemic heart disease (14.0 thousand, 33.2%), and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (7.6 thousand, 18.0%). Our calculations do not support or advocate any idea that pandemics produce a positive note to community health. We simply present health benefits from air pollution improvement due to large emission reductions from lowered human and industrial activities. Our results show that continuous efforts to improve air quality are essential to protect public health, especially over city-clusters with dense population. Plain Language Summary The outbreak of COVID-19 is tragic and has caused tremendous impacts on people's life across the world. In late January 2020, massive lockdown was taken in China in order to prevent the spread of the pandemic and control human-to-human transmissions. As a result of reduced human activities, air quality was shown to improve substantially over China. A natural follow-up question would be what is the short-term health impact associated with the changes of air quality during the lockdown. This study attempted to quantify the number of avoided death due to reduced PM 2.5 concentrations over the Yangtze River Delta Region in China, a region with dense population and used to suffer from severe air pollution problems in the past.

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“…Therefore, the winter sample set of 2014 should also include the samples in January and February of 2015. Very few PM2.5 values are missing (only Jan.1 2015 and Dec. [22][23][24][25][26]2018), so these days were discarded from the samples, both for the observed PM2.5 values and the nal screened predictors.…”

Section: Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The emission and transport of PM2.5 in local areas are very complex in contrast to the meteorological factor. But according to many previous studies, meteorology is the main factor which in uent the daily variations of concentration of PM2.5 (Chen et al, 2018;Chen et al, 2020;Wang et al, 2020;Zhang et al, 2020). That means, under a given emission level of pollutants, the relative concentration level of PM2.5 can be estimated/predicted from the meteorological factors.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Downscaling Winter Daily PM2.5 Concentrations From Large-Scale Meteorological Dataset -a Case Study for a City in North China

Liu¹,

Yang²,

Zhao³

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Winter air pollution in North China becomes a serious environmental problem in recent years, which has aroused a widespread concern. Estimating PM2.5 concentration is necessary for the government to take actions in leading times, or to reproduce the historical values. In this study, we attempt to construct statistical downscaling (SD) models based on large-scale meteorological variables, to estimate the PM2.5 in Jiaozuo, a city in the heavy-pollution area of North China. Predictors were screened from large-scale meteorological variables, by selecting the grid boxes with the values highly correlated to the PM2.5 in Jiaozuo. Correlation maps show that PM2.5 is usually related to comparatively low pressure and high relative humidity at the lower atmosphere and comparatively high pressure at the upper atmosphere, high air temperature in all the troposphere and weak winter monsoonal winds. After training the SD models with the winter samples during 2014-2017, the daily PM2.5 is simulated with correlation coefficients of 0.607 (mean) and 0.548 (maximum) to the observation, by the logarithmic transformed PM2.5 values. The SD models can roughly reflect the daily variation of PM2.5. Compared to the PM2.5 model based on the local meteorological data, larger correlations are obtained (0.57 versus 0.51-0.53, without logarithmic transformation). In the days of “APEC Blue Sky” and the “SCO Blue Sky” with emissions largely reduced by strict controls on industry and traffic in surrounding areas, low PM2.5 is indeed observed, however, the SD models without considering any change of emissions also produced low PM2.5 simulations, implying that the large-scale circulation plays a main role in the daily variation of air pollution. Similar effects were obtained for the traffic-control month and the Chinese Spring festival with massive fireworks burning. Basing on the large-scale reanalysis variables and assuming the same emission level as that in the model training period, the downscaled winter PM2.5 has a significant decreasing trend during 1979-2017.

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Acute and chronic health impacts of PM2.5 in China and the influence of interannual meteorological variability

Cited by 30 publications

References 60 publications

Health benefits of decreases in on-road transportation emissions in the United States from 2008 to 2017

Health benefits of decreases in on-road transportation emissions in the United States from 2008 to 2017

The Silver Lining of COVID‐19: Estimation of Short‐Term Health Impacts Due to Lockdown in the Yangtze River Delta Region, China

Downscaling Winter Daily PM2.5 Concentrations From Large-Scale Meteorological Dataset -a Case Study for a City in North China

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