EGU2020-12322
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-12322
EGU General Assembly 2020
© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Population aging might mask the health benefit from China’s 2013 Clean Air Action

Yifan Liu1, Xiaojing He1, Zixiao Zhao1, Ge Zhu1, Clive Sabel2, Zongwei Ma1, Ziheng Jiao1, Jing Zhao1, and Haikun Wang
Yifan Liu et al.
  • 1Nanjing University, School of the Environment, Environmental Planning and Management, China
  • 2BERTHA Big Data Centre for Environment and Health, Department of Environmental Science, Aarhus University, 4000 Roskilde, Denmark

Ambient PM2.5 (fine particulate matter) pollution in China has been greatly reduced in recent years, especially since the implementation of Clean Air Action in 2013. Analysis of variations in the pollution related health burden and the driving factors has important implications for the policymakers to further improve the health benefit of air pollution controls. Here we adopted an annual population distribution estimate, disaggregated by age structure, together with PM2.5 concentration and incidence data, to better estimate total PM2.5 attributable mortality considering the effect of changing population size and age structure. We then quantified the contribution of each factor to the total variation of PM2.5 attributable mortality both nationally and regionally. Our analysis showed that national PM2.5 attributable mortality generally increased from 861,140 (95% confidence interval: 525,860~1,161,550) in 2004 to 932,500 (546,590~1,300,160) in 2017. In most 2nd- and higher-tier cities in China, which stand for highly developed cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, etc., the PM2.5 health burden increased. Meanwhile, the decrease in city-level PM2.5 health burden mainly happened in 3rd- and lower-tier cities, where local developments were relatively smaller. The effect of exposure to PM2.5 on air pollution-related mortality has altered from aggravating to mitigating since 2012, and the abated PM2.5 exposure resulted in a reduction of 19.7% of PM2.5 attributable mortality between 2012 and 2017. However, such benefit was almost masked by the effect of the population aging, which brought an increase of 18.4% to the health burden. Our results implied that the increasing trend in China’s PM2.5 health burden since 2006 was halted after 2012 due to the pollution control policies, and population aging impeded it from declining further. For future air pollution control and public health affairs, growing cities in China should focus attention on old-age care, where the growth of attributable mortality might occur.

How to cite: Liu, Y., He, X., Zhao, Z., Zhu, G., Sabel, C., Ma, Z., Jiao, Z., Zhao, J., and Wang, H.: Population aging might mask the health benefit from China’s 2013 Clean Air Action, EGU General Assembly 2020, Online, 4–8 May 2020, EGU2020-12322, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-12322, 2020