Air pollution causes people in northern China to live an average of 5.5 years shorter than their southern counterparts, according to a study released on Monday which claims to show in unprecedented detail the link between air pollution and life expectancy.
High levels of air pollution in northern China – much of it caused by an over-reliance on burning coal for heat – will cause 500 million people to lose an aggregate 2.5 billion years from their lives, the authors predict in the study, published in the journal the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The geographic disparity can be traced back to China’s Huai River policy which, since it was implemented between 1950 and 1980, has granted free wintertime heating to people living north of the Huai river, a widely-acknowledged dividing line between northern and southern China. Much of that heating comes from the combustion of coal, significantly impacting the region’s air quality.
China’s reliance on coal reduces life expectancy by 5.5 years, says study
High levels of air pollution will cause 500 million people to lose an aggregate 2.5 billion years from their lives
by Jonathan Kaiman
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/jul/08/northern-china-air-pollution-life-expectancy
Evidence on the impact of sustained exposure to air pollution on life expectancy from China’s Huai River policy
by Yuyu Chena, Avraham Ebensteinb, Michael Greenstonec and Hongbin Lie
http://www.pnas.org/content/110/32/12936.abstract
This paper’s findings suggest that an arbitrary Chinese policy that greatly increases total suspended particulates (TSPs) air pollution is causing the 500 million residents of Northern China to lose more than 2.5 billion life years of life expectancy. The quasi-experimental empirical approach is based on China’s Huai River policy, which provided free winter heating via the provision of coal for boilers in cities north of the Huai River but denied heat to the south. Using a regression discontinuity design based on distance from the Huai River, we find that ambient concentrations of TSPs are about 184 μg/m3 [95% confidence interval (CI): 61, 307] or 55% higher in the north. Further, the results indicate that life expectancies are about 5.5 y (95% CI: 0.8, 10.2) lower in the north owing to an increased incidence of cardiorespiratory mortality. More generally, the analysis suggests that long-term exposure to an additional 100 μg/m3 of TSPs is associated with a reduction in life expectancy at birth of about 3.0 y (95% CI: 0.4, 5.6).
Air pollution and life expectancy in China and beyond
by C. Arden Pope III and Douglas W. Dockery
http://www.pnas.org/content/110/32/12861