Evidence on the impact of sustained exposure to air pollution on life expectancy
During the period of 1950 - 1980, the Chinese government installed free winter heating within the homes and offices through fuel (coal) boilers establishing the heating of a home in the winter as a right. Although establishing it as a right, this policy had only been limited to those within north China, specifically North of the Huai River and Qinling Mountain Range. The experiment shows the impact the Huai River Policy had on pollution and human health especially when compared to those who reside within the south.
The way this experiment was conducted was first by collecting information about the average concentrations of TSP(Total suspended particles) for 90 cities from 1981 to 2000. The data itself was sourced by Chinese language publications and electronic files combined with the information from the "China Environment Yearbook". After, the mortality data were collected through China's Disease Surveillance Points(DSP) System which is a set of sites that record the deaths and population counts of the sites and make a national average using the data. The data provided through these points helped plug in the numbers to compare the relationship between TSP's and Human Health to these equations.
1) Yj = β0 + β1TSPj + XjΓ +«j;
2) TSPj =α0 + α1Nj + α2f Lj + Xjκ +νj
3) Yj = δ0 + δ1Nj + δ2f Lj +Xjϕ+ uj;
4) Yj = β0 + β1TSP^ j +β2f Lj + XjΓ +«j;
TSPj - Total suspended particles
Xj -Vector of Obstacle Characteristics within the city
«j - Disturbance term
Yj - Measure of mortality rates in city "j" or the life expectancy
β1 - Effect of TSP on mortality
Nj - Indicator variable
f(Lj) - Polynomial in the degrees north of the Huai
β1TSP^ j - Fitted values from equation 1.
In conclusion, studies have shown that China's Huai River policy has significantly increased the air pollution. This experiment shows the rise of TSP concentrations and the comparison of how much higher it is for the North than it is in the South of China and how high it is overall.
As stated within the background of the experiment, the government favored the Huai River Policy in hopes of increasing economical growth within the country. This one policy has contributed significantly to the pollution in the north and resulted in a decrease in life expectancy by 5.52 years. In general, I think it's important to weigh the cost of pollution to economic growth as China has shown that explosive economical growth ( at the cost of pollution ) can lead to a lowering of life expectancy.
