Air Pollution and Public Health: Study on the Effects and Transmission Mechanism in the Case of China

Following with the social-economy development and the increase of the incidence of various respiratory diseases, countries all over the world are increasingly paying attention to the issue of air pollution. This study uses the tracking data of 31 provincial capitals in China from 2013 to 2020, empirically tests the impact of air pollution on public health based on the ordinary least squares regression, and investigates the reliability of research conclusions with single instrumental variables and double instrumental variables based on the 2-Stage Least Squares and 3-stage Least Squares method. The results showed that air pollution significantly increased the “the number of respiratory diseases deaths per 10,000 people,” the effect reached 24.97%; and there were significant differences in the effects due to different pollution levels, along with the cumulation of the number of days with the air pollution index exceeds 300, the deterioration effects of air pollution on public health will reach the highest value as 0.42%. After replacing the indicators of public health and the treating of endogeneity, the above results are still robust. The impact coefficients significantly increased compare to benchmark model, which has increased to 89.66%. The variable coefficients of days with air pollution index exceeding 300 has increased to 6.66%. In the formation mechanism of air pollution, both industrial pollution and domestic pollution play significant roles, their effects reached 14.79% and 39.61%, respectively; they jointly increase the deterioration degree of air pollution and transmit to the impact of air pollution on public health, the interaction effect reached 5.86%. The air pollution has considerable impact on public health, and when the degree of air pollution increases, its impact is enhanced. The main impact mechanism of air pollution is presented as the joint influences of industrial pollution and domestic pollution that transmitting to the public health.