Fine Particulate Air Pollution, Public Service, and Under-Five Mortality: A Cross-Country Empirical Study

Abstract

The impacts of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) air pollution on health outcomes, especially those of children, have attracted worldwide attention. Based on the PM2.5 concentration data of 94 countries, including the least developed countries estimated by satellite observations in nearly 20 years, this paper investigated the impacts of PM2.5 pollution on under-five mortality rate (U5MR) and analyzed the role of public service in moderating the PM2.5-mortality relationship. Results indicated that PM2.5 pollution had significantly positive influence on U5MR globally. However, the effects of fine particulate pollution on child mortality were heterogeneous in terms of their significance and degrees in countries with different levels of development. A further test based on panel threshold model revealed that public service, measured by public education spending and sanitation service, played a positive moderating role in the PM2.5-mortality relationship. Specifically, when the ratio of public education expenditure in GDP of a country exceeded the first threshold value 3.39% and the second threshold value 5.47%, the magnitude of the impacts of PM2.5 pollution on U5MR significantly decreased accordingly. When the percentage of population with access to improved sanitation facilities in a country was over 41.3%, the health damaging effects were reduced by more than half. This paper fills the current gap of PM2.5 research in least developed countries and provides key policy recommendations.

Fine particulate matter air pollution and the mortality of children under five: a multilevel analysis of the Ethiopian Demographic and Health Survey of 2016

“…It may also be because the estimate by Karimi and Shokrinezhad (46) was a pooled estimate, and the majority of studies included were from developed nations. The magnitude of the effect of PM 2.5 on under-five mortality is higher among developing and least developed countries compared to developed countries (47). Fine particulate matter, as a result of its smaller mass concentration diameter size, can penetrate the blood-gas barrier.…”

The lag effect of exposure to PM2.5 on esophageal cancer in urban-rural areas across China

“…Van Donkelaar employed a GWR model to demonstrate the accuracy of satellite data in Mainland of China(R 2 =0.81) (van Donkelaar et al, 2019). To date, this dataset has been widely used to assess health risks (Guo et al, 2020b;Liu et al, 2020). We calculated and extracted the average concentration of PM2.5 by the polygon of each county over the periods of 2007-2015.…”