Estimating health burden and economic loss attributable to short-term exposure to multiple air pollutants in China
Abstract Background Existing studies focused on the evaluation of health burden of long-term exposure to air pollutants, whereas limited information is available on short-term exposure, particularly in China.Methods Air pollutants concentrations in 338 Chinese cities in 2017 were used to estimate the air pollutants related health burden which was defined as premature mortalities from all-cause, cardiovascular and respiratory disease as well as hospital admissions (HAs) for cardiovascular and respiratory disease. Log-linear model was used as the exposure-response function to estimate the health burden attributable to each air pollutant. The value of statistical life and cost of illness methods were used to estimate economic loss of the premature mortalities and HAs, respectively.Results The national all-cause premature mortalities attributable to all air pollutants was 1.35 million, accounting for 17.2% of reported deaths in China in 2017. Among all-cause premature mortality, contributions of PM10, SO2, NO2, CO, and O3 were 16.3%, 9.6%, 28.9%, 22.2% and 23.0%, respectively. The national cardiovascular and respiratory premature mortalities were 0.78 and 0.21 million, respectively. About 6.79 million cardiovascular and respiratory disease HAs were attributed to short-term exposure to PM10, SO2, NO2, and O3. The economic loss of the overall health burden was 2057.66 billion Yuan, which was equivalent to 2.5% of the national GDP in 2017.Conclusions The health burden and economic loss attributable to short-term exposure to ambient air pollutant are substantial in China. It suggested that the adverse health effects attributable to short-term exposure to air pollutant should not be neglected in China.