Public’s Health Risk Awareness on Urban Air Pollution in Chinese Megacities: The Cases of Shanghai, Wuhan and Nanchang

Abstract

This study assessed the public’s health risk awareness of urban air pollution triggered by three megacities in China, and the data are the responses from a sample size of 3868 megacity inhabitants from Shanghai, Nanchang and Wuhan. Descriptive analyses were used to summarize the respondents’ demographics, perceived health risks from air pollution and sources of health-related knowledge on urban air pollution. Chi-square tests were used to examine if participants’ demographics were associated with participant’s general attitudes towards current air quality and the three perceived highest health risks due to urban air pollution. We found low rate of satisfaction of current urban air quality as well as poor knowledge of air pollution related indicator. Participants’ gender, age and travel experience were found to be associated with the satisfaction of current air quality. The knowledge of air pollution related indicator was significantly affected by respondents’ education, monthly income, health status, and sites of study. As many as 46.23% of the participants expressed their feelings of anxiety when exposed to polluted air, especially females, older adults and those with poor health conditions. Most participants believed that coughs/colds, eye problems and skin allergies were the three highest health risks due to urban air pollution based on public education through television/radio, internet and newspaper/magazine. Further public health education is needed to improve public awareness of air pollution and its effects.

Willingness to Pay for Improved Air Quality and Influencing Factors among Manufacturing Workers in Nanchang, China

“…Therefore, they care about more and have the desire for clean air and more health living environment. However, gender was also identified to be a factor affecting people's WTP in the report [7,15], which was not confirmed in this study. A possible explanation for this discrepancy finding may be partially due to the different nature of respondent occupations.…”

“…In general, people with poor health status would have higher WTP [55] but this was not confirmed in this study. One possible explanation of this observation may be due to that health status is the feeling of a self-reported condition by participants at the survey time with no clinical testing data and reports and thus the poor health condition may be the result of many other illnesses but not necessarily due to poor air related respiratory and lung diseases [7,56].…”

“…One larger industrial area was selected from each district including Wanli industrial area from Wanli district (low-income district), Changnan industrial area from Qingyunpu district (middle-level district) and Changdong industrial area from Qingshanhu district (high-income district). Based on the previous study of air quality carried out in Nanchang [7], a sample size of 690 was targeted and 230 manufacturing workers were randomly selected from each selected industrial area. Since the in-person interviews were considered as preferable to mail or telephone surveys to achieve contingent values [28] and also considering different educational level of manufacturing workers, a face-to-face interview method was carried out in this study.…”

The Tsinghua–Lancet Commission on Healthy Cities in China: unlocking the power of cities for a healthy China

“…A survey of perceived health risks from air pollution in Shanghai, Wuhan, and Nanchang found that more than 57% of respondents were not satisfied with current air quality; 46% of participants expressed anxiety about exposure to polluted air. 24 Through social media, urban citizens in China are increasingly speaking out on issues that they believe are affecting their health and wellbeing. Environmental petitions and complaints have increased by more than 20% annually in recent years and mass protests for environmental issues are occurring across China.…”

Multi-Criteria Analyses of Urban Planning for City Expansion: A Case Study of Zamora, Spain

“…Fortunately, in the 1990s, the population began to become aware of the health of the environment, which is why urban planning has taken on a new dimension. Nowadays, in addition to economic development, urban planning aims to achieve sustainable development and social equity [21][22][23], integrating environmental criteria in decision-making phases in order to address pollution and public health problems arising from the urbanization of large areas without adequate planning [24][25][26][27][28]. To achieve these objectives, urban planning has been articulated by a large amount of legislation, and a large number of tools, methodologies and techniques have been incorporated, many of which are related to geographic information systems (GISs).…”