Changes in Years of Life Lost and Life Expectancy by Reducing Air Pollution

Although air pollution is a major risk factor of the mortality burden, studies that consider different age structure and gender among deaths, and quantify the effects of different levels of air pollutants on life expectancy have been limited. Therefore, this study performed years of life lost (YLL) and potential gains in life expectancy (PGLE) to address these problems, and assessed the life expectancy benefits under different air quality standards to provide scientific evidence for future air pollution prevention and control actions. We adopted generalized additive model (GAM) to explore the short-term effects of each air pollutant (CO, NO2, O3, PM10, PM2.5, and SO2) on YLL from non-accidental death, cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. By assuming that daily concentrations for each air pollutant have been successfully controlled under the Chinese National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS), and the 2005’s and 2021’s Ambient Air Quality Guidelines (AQGs) of World Health Organization (WHO), we calculated the avoidable YLL, respectively, and the attributable fraction (AF) and PGLE were obtained accordingly. We found that O3, PM10 and PM2.5 were significantly associated with the cause-specific YLL, while the effects of CO, NO2 and SO2 were weaker. Among all the air pollutants, when daily PM2.5 levels met the new WHO 2021’s AQGs (15 μg/m3), the PGLE for per death of respiratory disease was the largest [0.933 (95