Economic Analysis Of The Health Effects Of Air Pollution

China has experienced rapid economic development in the1980s, with rapid urbanization and industrialization, there are many things impediment to economic development and people’s further improvement of life, threatening the future of mankind survival, such as population growth, excessive consumption of resources and highlight the growing problem of environmental pollution, ecological damage. In China, the topic that how great damage on health has been caused by environmental pollution has received widespread concern, especially air pollution and its health burden caused particularly serious environmental pollution. In recent years, the results of epidemiological studies have confirmed that air pollutants and human health are closely related. Foreign research results also revealed the health costs of air pollution accounts for a large proportion of the total loss of the environmental pollution. State air pollution has also given great attention to the revised air quality standards in China, particularly PM2.5included in the monitoring of the content, and we have a number of pilot cities began to work to strengthen the implementation of the policy efforts. China’s economic development, the protection and improvement of public health has become one of the major development objectives of national policy. But for a long time "high input, high consumption, high pollution" mode of economic growth constitute a huge pressure on the environment. Although the government developed and constantly improved the system of environmental laws and regulations, and environmental protection has made some progress, severe environmental situation remains unchanged:excessive main pollutant emissions, serious urban air pollution increased, acid rain increased pollution, and many other atmospheric environmental issues and environmental problems. These problems, that gradually showed up during the course of industrilation in developed countires for a century, occur intensively in China in recent20years, showing the structure, compound, compression-type characteristics. Therefore, the economic evaluation of air pollution damage to human health helps to understand the hazard levels of air pollution in China, provide the scientific guidance for economic development and environmental protection decisions.In this paper, the theoretical knowledge of related disciplines such as health economics, environmental economics and econometrics, the use of micro and macro, quantitative and qualitative analysis of a combination of methods to investigate the health effects of air pollution. The full text contains the following aspects:First, literature review on air pollution and health terminals hazard exposure response relationship, the value of urban air pollution health risk assessment, health risk assessment related literature, analysis of domestic and foreign research methods, basic conditions, as well as research focus; Second, the choice of the typical city (This article is the analysis of Chengdu), air monitoring data, death, hospitalization and other health data, temperature, humidity and other meteorological data collection and sorting, select the major air pollutants, health effects of the terminal; Third, to carry out the typical regional air pollutants and health effects of exposure-response relationship between research and control of confounding factors, in-depth study of air pollution and daily deaths of the residents of the respiratory system and cardiovascular diseases outpatient, and emergency short-term acute health the effects of exposure-response relationship analysis of air pollution health exposure-response relationship of cause and effect relationship; Fourth, the use of the latest macroeconomic statistics, considering the interaction of economic, environmental and health, also selected health indicators to represent different ages groups:mortality, perinatal mortality, the proportion of birth weight infants less than2500grams, pediatric outpatient visits and the incidence of tuberculosis to examine the impact of the emissions of major air pollution components and changes in the number of different health indicators.After the empirical analysis of the data, we get the following conclusions:First, according to the air quality standards in China, Chengdu,2009-2010air quality is good, but under lower pollution levels, air pollution still pose a health significant negative impact on health. The increase of Air Pollution Index (API) for each10units will lead the day after hospitalization due to respiratory system diseases, increase by the number of about0.6people in the following day. Controling temperature, pressure and precipitation of three meteorological factors, we still get significant results.Second, the health effects of air pollution have the week effects and seasonal effects. The specialists do not work in weekend, the patients will be focused on the Monday and Friday for treatment. The air quality with the meteorological factors will exacerbate the morbidity rates of respiratory system diseases, when the seasons are changing.Third, we analyze the impact of changes in air pollution levels on health care costs using the inpatients data in Chengdu. The results show that the increment of air pollution index for each10units leads to an115.5yuan average for the total medical cost per person per day,and3.34yuan for expenses on self-paid medicines,10.5yuan for treatment cost.Fourthly, according to the empirical analysis of the provincial-level panel data, industrial emissions of air pollutants on mortality, perinatal mortality, birth weight infants less than2500grams proportion of pediatric outpatient visits, the incidence of tuberculosis are significant to prove the health effects. Overseas studies have shown that the use of infant health indicators to better reflect a causal relationship between air pollution and health, while the use of perinatal mortality and birth weight infants less than2500grams proportion of the two indicators to confirm the health effects of air pollution.Fifth, according to the regression results of the income equation, the physical capital investment, the amount of labor and education, per capita income has a significant positive effect; population has a negative impact on per capita income; industrial pollutant emissions per capita income have a significant negative impact. The early21st century economic growth since China’s population health status of significant negative effects (proportion of birth weight less than2500grams has significant positive effect to economic growth, but the effect of it and other public health indicators do not significant); the situation of education have significant positive impact on economic growth; industrial pollution emissions have a significant negative impact on economic growth, and its role in a variety of factors that affect economic growth is the most robust. Which show different aspects of industrial pollutant emissions show a different pattern of change in the process of economic growth. Sixth, overall, the per capita industrial gas pollutant emissions increased with the level of per capita income is reduced. The estimated value of the tertiary industry is sometimes not significant, but significant, its symbols are negative, in line with expectations, indicating the development of tertiary industry will help to improve the quality of the environment.The full text is structured into five chapters, as follows:The first chapter is an introduction. It describes the background of the health effects of air pollution, and article content and research methods briefly, given the overall research ideas in this paper, the form of a chart to visually reflects the overall structure of the paper.The second chapter is a literature review. First we introduces the background knowledge of air pollution, how air pollution affects the health and air pollution measure the contents of a brief summary. Then made a systematic review of the health effects of different health indicators to measure the angle mortality, outpatient and emergency department attendance rates and prevalence, etc..The third chapter is the analysis of empirical research of the health effects of Chengdu. Integration at the same time according to the micro data2009-2010, Air Pollution Index (API) released by the Environmental Protection Agency announced and the world monitoring site the daily meteorological data, using time series analysis methods to analyze the air pollution index of the respiratory system disease every day the impact of the inpatients, the study found that air pollution index inpatients towards Japan have a significant positive impact, that is, the higher the level of air pollution, the more the number of hospitalization due to respiratory system diseases. Chengdu urban and rural residents medical insurance in2009-2010, insured hospital due to respiratory system diseases microscopic statistical analysis, the analysis found that the higher the level of co-ordination of Chengdu urban and rural residents basic medical insurance patients the proportion of the greater proportion from the gender point of view, more female patients. The majority of insured persons hospitalized due to respiratory system diseases in two years time, but some insured persons within two years hospitalized for more than three times even not a big number.The forth chapter is the analysis of empirical research using2003-2010eight years of panel data of30provinces and cities across the country, selected mortality, perinatal mortality, birth weight infants less than2500g, the proportion of pediatric outpatient visits, as well as the incidence of tuberculosis in five different health indicators, the three major industrial air pollutant emissions and the number of cars four different types of air environmental indicators, the use of fixed effect models and simultaneous equations model to study the health effects of air pollution, and further confirmed by the health effects of air pollution.The fifth chapter is a summary of the full text that discussed the conclusion conclusions based on insufficient and further research direction of the article.Innovations in this article are as follows:First, the analysis of the health effects of air pollution in Chengdu for the first time, but only for the residents participating in medical insurance for urban and rural residents suffering from respiratory system diseases, hospitalization data analysis. Residents with health insurance may actively go to the hospital for treatment after the illness because insurance reimbursement grants, it is relatively to ensure the integrity of the analysis of samples of the health effects of air pollution throughout the city. Insured persons are urban and rural residents medical insurance, we can measure the incidence of residents under the same insurance system and whether to choose the level of hospital. The second is the first time with perinatal mortality, proportion of birth weight infants less than2500grams to measure public health indicators, used to analyze the health effects of air pollution. In the previous literature, the main applications mortality analysis of air pollution on health, the health status of adults but also by the endowments of their own health, health habits, such as the accumulation of factors, the results of the analysis may be biased, easy to overestimate the impact of air pollution on health. However, the two health indicators used in this paper is the health status of the newborn, and more only by the mother during pregnancy and just been born during the period of air pollution exposure levels to more effectively assess the impact of air pollution on health. The deficiencies of this article is:subject to data limitations, do not control more micro variables affecting the health, such as the mother’s behavior, or other effective assessment of the health effects of air pollution.