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Air pollution places a considerable disease burden on the public. Compared with the widely applied air quality index (AQI), the air quality health index (AQHI) provides a more comprehensive measure of multiple pollutants. In this study, AQHI was constructed using environmental data, meteorological data, and the daily mortality data of Beijing residents from 2018 to 2020. Factors increasing the susceptibility of the population to the health effects of air pollution were identified to aid the construction of a specific AQHI (S-AQHI) for susceptible populations. The findings indicated that older adults, women, and people with respiratory disease are more susceptible to the short-term health effects of air pollution. The relative deviation in the AQHI and S-AQHI for changes in daily mortality percentage of various specific populations ranged from only 1.4% to 10.3%, indicating the universality of the AQHI in its capacity to predict health risks. The Spearman coefficient of correlation between the AQHI and AQI was 0.78 (p < 0.01). Each increase in the interquartile range of the AQHI and AQI results in an increase of 1.894% and 1.029% in the total daily mortality, respectively, demonstrating the stronger capacity of the AQHI to predict daily mortality compared to the AQI.