Effects of Ambient Air Quality Improvement on Mortality From Acute Air Pollution Exposure in Beijing

Abstract Exposure to air pollutants increase the mortality of population. Developing countries have taken measures to control air pollution. To explore the effects of air quality improvement on mortality, air quality and acute exposure-response coefficients of excess death in Beijing since the 1990’s were analyzed. It was divided into five stages according to the concentration level of pollutants. Coefficients for period 1990 – 2013 were obtained by retrieving literatures published before December 31, 2019. The coefficients for period 2015 – 2017 were obtained by analyzing the daily data of air pollutant concentration, meteorological and human mortality conducting Poisson Generalized Additive Model (GAM). Meta-analysis of random effect model was used to estimate the integrated coefficient of multiple studies at each stages. Comparative analysis was used to analyze the variation of air quality and coefficients in different stages. The results showed that the concentrations of sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), particulate matter with aerodynamic diameter ≤10μm (PM10) and ≤2.5μm (PM2.5) decreased by up to 50%, 21%, 22% and 15% in different stages. The coefficient of SO2 on death from respiratory diseases decreased by up to 63.79%. The coefficients of NO2 on mortality from non-accidental causes, cardiovascular disease, and respiratory disease decreased by up to 0.95%, 1.34% and 0.54%. The coefficients of PM10, PM2.5 on mortality from cardiovascular diseases and respiratory disease were decreased by up to 0.19%, 0.31%, 0.65% and 0.36%. Continued improvements in air quality have reduced the acute impact on the health of the local population.