Air Pollution and Mental Health: Evidence from China

Abstract

A large body of literature estimates the effect of air pollution on health. However, most of these studies have focused on physical health, while the effect on mental health is limited. Using the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) covering 12,615 urban residents during 2014 -2015, we find significantly positive effect of air pollution -instrumented by thermal inversions -on mental illness. Specifically, a one-standard-deviation (18.04 μg/m3) increase in average PM 2.5 concentrations in the past month increases the probability of having a score that is associated with severe mental illness by 6.67 percentage points, or 0.33 standard deviations. Based on average health expenditures associated with mental illness and rates of treatment among those with symptoms, we calculate that these effects induce a total annual cost of USD 22.88 billion in health expenditures only. This cost is on a similar scale to pollution costs stemming from mortality, labor productivity, and dementia.

The effect of air pollution on body weight and obesity: Evidence from China

“…Air pollution could also lead to a direct increase in calories consumed. For example, Chen et al (2018) find that air pollution is likely to induce a variety of mental illness, such as depression and anxiety, which could release the hormone cortisol and increase appetite for energy-intensive foods, insulin resistance, and fat accumulation (Björntorp, 1997). Building on these observational studies, the goal of this paper is to formally test the proposition that air pollution is causally related to evaluated body weight and overweight and obesity risks.…”

“…To ensure that our instrument meets the exclusion restriction criteria, we control for flexible weather variables so that thermal inversions affect body weight only through air pollution. Thermal inversions have been used as IV for air pollution in several studies, including Hicks et al (2015), Arceo et al, (2016), Chen et al (2017), Fu et al, (2017), Chen et al (2018), and Jans et al (2018).…”

Twenty Key Challenges in Environmental and Resource Economics

“…Alexander and Schwandt 2019) but have been an active field of research for a number of years (Schlenker and Walker 2016;Tschofen et al 2019). Mental health implications like stress, anxiety or depression on the other hand have received much less attention although, for example, Chen et al (2018) in a study on air pollution in China estimate these effects to be on a similar scale to costs arising from impacts on physical health. Also, Danzer and Danzer (2016) find substantial effects of a large energy-related disaster (the Chernobyl catastrophe) on subjective well-being and mental health.…”

Growing Evidence for the Impact of Air Pollution on Depression

“…2 Air pollutants can also cause serious neurocognitive effects-ranging from behavioral variations to neurodegenerative disorders-that ultimately can have devastating effects on mental health. 3,4 WHO has taken the initiative to include mental health in the domain of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), as mental health is a strong risk factor for NCDs. 5 Mental disorders such as depression affect more than 300 million people worldwide; a rise of >18% was reported between 2005 and 2015.…”

“…7 According to data from China published in 2018, every 1 standard deviation rise in particulate matter over an average PM2.5 concentration increases the likelihood of having mental illness (including depression) by 6.67%, translating to an annual medical expense of $22.88 billion USD. 4 MohanKumar et al found that air pollutants, specifically particulate matter, induce inflammation and oxidative stress in the brain that can lead to the manifestation of depression. 2 Vert et al found that the rate of depression was 2 times higher for each 10 μg/m 3 increase in the nitric oxide level.…”