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Page added on July 9, 2013
China smog cuts 5.5 years from average life expectancy
China’s air pollution has cut life expectancy by an average of 5.5 years in the north of the country and caused higher rates of lung cancer, heart attacks and strokes, according to a groundbreaking study.
The worsening toxic smog in northern China became an issue of national concern after air pollution spiked to record levels in Beijing in January, prompting worried citizens to stock up on air filters and face masks. Pollution domes, which provide filtered air for sports activities, are also increasingly common.
But the body of scientific research on the health impact is slim because there is little historical precedent for prolonged exposure to such high levels of air pollution.
Using decades of pollution data from across China, the new study, co-authored by professors from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the US, Tsinghua University and Peking University in Beijing, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, calculates that air pollution in the north caused the loss of 2.5bn years of aggregate human life expectancy during the 1990s.
“This is the first time anyone has got the data to show how severe long-term pollution affects human health, both in terms of life expectancy and the types of disease,” said Li Hongbin, an economics professor at Tsinghua University and a co-author of the study.
“It shows how high the cost of pollution is in terms of human life – and that it is worth it for the government to spend more money to solve the pollution issue, even if we have to sacrifice growth.”
Mr Li estimates the shorter life expectancy identified by the study in northern China is equivalent to reducing the workforce there by one-eighth.
China’s breakneck economic development during the past three decades has been accompanied by the widespread degradation of air, soil and water. Environmental worries are now a growing source of social unrest and public protest, particularly because of health concerns. In response, Beijing has tightened environmental laws and regulations but these efforts have so far had little impact in reversing decades of damage.
The study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the prestigious US journal, compares populations north and south of the Huai River, which runs through central China. Air pollution is much worse north of the river because of a government policy to distribute free coal for heating in winter.
Using pollution data from 1981-2000 and health data from 1991-2000, the study found that an increase of 100 micrograms of total particulate matter per cubic metre, a common measure of air pollution, corresponded to a three-year reduction in average life expectancy. The difference between the north and south of the river was about 185 micrograms per cubic metre.
“What we found is that people who live just north of the river have life expectancy of five and a half years [less],” said Michael Greenstone, a professor of environmental economics at MIT and a co-author of the study.
“Part of the novelty of this study is that this was conducted with data on actual pollution measurements in China, and actual health and life expectancy in China. It is not an extrapolation,” he said.
Most previous calculations of the health cost of Chinese pollution are extrapolated from research conducted in the US, where overall pollution levels are much lower.
7 Comments on "China smog cuts 5.5 years from average life expectancy"
BillT on Tue, 9th Jul 2013 3:15 am
FT, the porn of the ‘investment’ industry. More ‘bad-mouth China’ propaganda. After all, the smog in China was in the US until not too long ago. They just got that as a side benefit to the jobs we sent there.
AS to how they know already that 5.5 years have been cut is BS. Best guess maybe. Corporate/government propaganda more likely.
Sounds like the 1960s and the smog in the US, or the ‘acid rain’ from coal plants, killing Eastern US forests, or the dyes and chemicals flowing in the streams and rivers that had manufacturing along their banks. But the sheeple do not know history. It’s no longer taught in today’s babysitting institutions called ‘schools’.
DC on Tue, 9th Jul 2013 3:31 am
Indeed, and how much does coal and smog cut life expectancy in the US? Probably by a similar amount. There is just as much smog in the US, the only difference is, a few decades ago, most industry and the auto-oil complex, for tactical reasons, agreed to make there pollution a little less obvious. Or put another way, they cleaned up their smog(made it a little prettier). Its still there in the US, just harder to see. China never took that step, so FT thinks China is somehow something new and unique. The FT should read some of the historical accounts of early-industrial Britain. Just reading them alone is eye-watering. And, like you say Bill, the US was no better until the US cosmetically cleaned up its pollution and then exported the rest.
Q/“This is the first time anyone has got the data to show how severe long-term pollution affects human health, both in terms of life expectancy and the types of disease,
The only reason they didn’t have the data from the US or UK, was that industry suppressed and the for-profit medical system largely ignored the problem so little or no research was done. When it was, it often didn’t see the light of day. Even today in the US, the EPA cannot directly accuse industry of causing cancer or other health related problems that occur near industrial zones. And the for-profit medical system does not even consider industrial pollution from cars and coal plants in the US to be a problem. Look how many decades it look them to finally admit smoking was a public-health issue.
Progress eh?
Rainer Klute on Tue, 9th Jul 2013 6:42 am
That’s why China goes nuclear.
dsula on Tue, 9th Jul 2013 10:44 am
BillT and sidekick DC: Hahaha. What has bad air in China nowadays to do with bad air in the US and UK 100 years ago? You guys try too hard. Sometimes it is what it is. Just bad air which is…bad!
BillT on Tue, 9th Jul 2013 3:03 pm
dsula, maybe it is to point out that pollution goes with progress in capitalist countries. China is capitalist as far as it’s economy is concerned. You cannot make stuff without pollution. We were just pointing out that China is no better or worse than any other manufacturing country. That is the price of cars and electronic junk in your lives.
DC on Wed, 10th Jul 2013 12:35 am
Dsula ain’t too bright is he. 100 years ago, up until a few decades ago, the air was just as thick in many other non-chinese locales. IE amerika. The fact that people that post here regularly,can clearly remember air in the old industrial heartlands of N.A. near as bad as what we see in China now, does not seem to register with him at all.
BillT on Wed, 10th Jul 2013 1:22 am
DC, they cannot understand comparisons without the word ‘comparison’ in the sentence. Faulty education or just the inability to think and reason?