Abstract:Atmospheric pollution from fine particulate matter (PM 2.5 ) is one of the major concerns in China because of its widespread and harmful impacts on human health. In recent years, multiple studies have sought to estimate the premature mortality burden from exposure to PM 2.5 to inform policy decisions. However, different modeling choices have led to a wide array of results, with significant discrepancies both in the total mortality burden and in the confidence intervals. Here, we present a new comprehensive as… Show more
“…Although anthropogenic emissions were sharply decreased, the 14.4% reduction in premature deaths is still low despite a 32.2% reduction of PM 2.5 . Such limited health effects even with substantial air quality improvements were also recognized in previous studies ( Giani et al, 2020a ; Xue et al, 2019 ). The main reason is because PM 2.5 concentrations were still high in most cities, and even enhanced PM 2.5 was reported in some cities during short periods of full lockdown ( Sokhi et al, 2021 ).…”
The health impact of changes in particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter <2.5 μm (PM
2.5
) pollution associated with the COVID-19 lockdown has aroused great interest, but the estimation of the long-term health effects is difficult because of the lack of an annual mean air pollutant concentration under a whole-year lockdown scenario. We employed a time series decomposition method to predict the monthly PM
2.5
concentrations in urban cities under permanent lockdown in 2020. The premature mortality attributable to long-term exposure to ambient PM
2.5
was quantified by the risk factor model from the latest epidemiological studies. Under a whole-year lockdown scenario, annual mean PM
2.5
concentrations in cites ranged from 5.4 to 68.0 μg m
−3
, and the national mean concentration was reduced by 32.2% compared to the 2015–2019 mean. The Global Exposure Mortality Model estimated that 837.3 (95% CI: 699.8–968.4) thousand people in Chinese cities would die prematurely from illnesses attributable to long-term exposure to ambient PM
2.5
. Compared to 2015–2019 mean levels, 140.2 (95% CI: 122.2–156.0) thousand premature deaths (14.4% of the annual mean deaths from 2015 to 2019) attributable to long-term exposure to PM
2.5
were avoided. Because PM
2.5
concentrations were still high under the whole-year lockdown scenario, the health benefit is limited, indicating that continuous emission-cutting efforts are required to reduce the health risks of air pollution. Since a similar scenario may be achieved through promotion of electric vehicles and the innovation of industrial technology in the future, the estimated long-term health impact under the whole year lockdown scenario can establish an emission–air quality–health impact linkage and provide guidance for future emission control strategies from a health protection perspective.
“…Although anthropogenic emissions were sharply decreased, the 14.4% reduction in premature deaths is still low despite a 32.2% reduction of PM 2.5 . Such limited health effects even with substantial air quality improvements were also recognized in previous studies ( Giani et al, 2020a ; Xue et al, 2019 ). The main reason is because PM 2.5 concentrations were still high in most cities, and even enhanced PM 2.5 was reported in some cities during short periods of full lockdown ( Sokhi et al, 2021 ).…”
The health impact of changes in particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter <2.5 μm (PM
2.5
) pollution associated with the COVID-19 lockdown has aroused great interest, but the estimation of the long-term health effects is difficult because of the lack of an annual mean air pollutant concentration under a whole-year lockdown scenario. We employed a time series decomposition method to predict the monthly PM
2.5
concentrations in urban cities under permanent lockdown in 2020. The premature mortality attributable to long-term exposure to ambient PM
2.5
was quantified by the risk factor model from the latest epidemiological studies. Under a whole-year lockdown scenario, annual mean PM
2.5
concentrations in cites ranged from 5.4 to 68.0 μg m
−3
, and the national mean concentration was reduced by 32.2% compared to the 2015–2019 mean. The Global Exposure Mortality Model estimated that 837.3 (95% CI: 699.8–968.4) thousand people in Chinese cities would die prematurely from illnesses attributable to long-term exposure to ambient PM
2.5
. Compared to 2015–2019 mean levels, 140.2 (95% CI: 122.2–156.0) thousand premature deaths (14.4% of the annual mean deaths from 2015 to 2019) attributable to long-term exposure to PM
2.5
were avoided. Because PM
2.5
concentrations were still high under the whole-year lockdown scenario, the health benefit is limited, indicating that continuous emission-cutting efforts are required to reduce the health risks of air pollution. Since a similar scenario may be achieved through promotion of electric vehicles and the innovation of industrial technology in the future, the estimated long-term health impact under the whole year lockdown scenario can establish an emission–air quality–health impact linkage and provide guidance for future emission control strategies from a health protection perspective.
“…The model was run at 27 km for the year 2016 using the set-up in the appendix (p 12) , which showed good skills in reproducing spatiotemporal patterns of PM 2·5 in China. 12 We integrated the baseline WRF-Chem simulation, which represents an underlying spatial field for each point in the specified domain, with observed in-situ data, which provide up-to-date and direct information on PM 2·5 concentrations (for details see the appendix pp 2–3 ). This approach helps to overcome issues related to purely observation-based studies (ie, data sparsity) as well as purely model-based studies (eg, lack of WRF-Chem-ready emission inventories for the COVID-19 outbreak period).…”
Section: Methodsmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…We adopted relative risk functions from cause-specific Global Exposure Mortality Models (GEMMs), 9 which specifically encompass only cohort studies of outdoor air pollution and have been recently applied to estimate mortality trends over China. 12 Within GEMMs, RR is defined as:…”
Background
Exposure to poor air quality leads to increased premature mortality from cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. Among the far-reaching implications of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, a substantial improvement in air quality was observed worldwide after the lockdowns imposed by many countries. We aimed to assess the implications of different lockdown measures on air pollution levels in Europe and China, as well as the short-term and long-term health impact.
Methods
For this modelling study, observations of fine particulate matter (PM
2·5
) concentrations from more than 2500 stations in Europe and China during 2016–20 were integrated with chemical transport model simulations to reconstruct PM
2·5
fields at high spatiotemporal resolution. The health benefits, expressed as short-term and long-term avoided mortality from PM
2·5
exposure associated with the interventions imposed to control the COVID-19 pandemic, were quantified on the basis of the latest epidemiological studies. To explore the long-term variability in air quality and associated premature mortality, we built different scenarios of economic recovery (immediate or gradual resumption of activities, a second outbreak in autumn, and permanent lockdown for the whole of 2020).
Findings
The lockdown interventions led to a reduction in population-weighted PM
2·5
of 14·5 μg m
−3
across China (−29·7%) and 2·2 μg m
−3
across Europe (−17·1%), with unprecedented reductions of 40 μg m
−3
in bimonthly mean PM
2·5
in the areas most affected by COVID-19 in China. In the short term, an estimated 24 200 (95% CI 22 380–26 010) premature deaths were averted throughout China between Feb 1 and March 31, and an estimated 2190 (1960–2420) deaths were averted in Europe between Feb 21 and May 17. We also estimated a positive number of long-term avoided premature fatalities due to reduced PM
2·5
concentrations, ranging from 76 400 (95% CI 62 600–86 900) to 287 000 (233 700–328 300) for China, and from 13 600 (11 900–15 300) to 29 500 (25 800–33 300) for Europe, depending on the future scenarios of economic recovery adopted.
Interpretation
These results indicate that lockdown interventions led to substantial reductions in PM
2·5
concentrations in China and Europe. We estimated that tens of thousands of premature deaths from air pollution were avoided, although with significant differences observed in Europe and China. Our findings suggest that considerable improvements in air quality are achievable in both China and Europe when stringent emission control policies are adopted.
Funding
None.
“…71 Again, in recent months, the response to COVID-19 has resulted in substantial reductions in transport activities and improved air quality for many cities. 56 , 72 , 73 However, this response has also led to several unexpected haze events in northeast China because of the enhanced atmospheric oxidising capacity, caused by the imbalanced emission abatement of nitrogen oxide and volatile organic compounds. 74 , 75 Figure 7 Air pollution emissions intensity of road transport in China from 2000 to 2018 for carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxide, and PM 10 PM 10 =particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter of 10 μm or less.…”
Section: Section 3: Mitigation Actions and Health Co-benefitsmentioning
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
