Air Pollution,Environmental Regulation And Residents’ Health

Health is an inevitable requirement for promoting all-round human development and a basic condition for economic and social development.The severe air pollution not only hinders the sustainable development of the economy and society,but also poses a major threat to public health.In such context,it is urgent to reduce pollution emissions and promote public health by environmental regulations.Therefore,it is necessary to comprehensively understand the impact of air pollution and environmental regulation on residents’health,and analyze the influence mechanism and spatial spillover mechanism.The analysis of these issues is essential for formulating effective environmental governance policies and public health policies,improving air quality and public health.On the basis of existing research,this paper analyzes the development status of air pollution,environmental regulation and residents’health in China based on satellite observation data,macro statistics data and micro survey data.Then,by constructing mathematical models and drawing on related theories,the paper deeply studies the impact mechanism of air pollution on residents’health,analyzes the impact paths of environmental regulation on residents’health,explores the impact mechanism of the interaction between air pollution and environmental regulation on residents’health,and explains the spatial spillover mechanism of air pollution and environmental regulation on residents’health.Subsequently,empirical studies are carried out based on Two-Stage Least Squares（2SLS）,Polynomial Distributed Lag Model（PDL）,Difference in Differences Model（DID）,Mediation Model,Spatial Durbin Model（SDM）,Two-Regime SDM and other methods.Specifically,the effects of air pollution on health capital and medical costs are comprehensively analyzed from the perspectives of physical health,mental health and social adaptability.The effects of command-controlled environmental regulation and market-incentive environmental regulation on residents’health are compared.Based on the mediation effect and moderating effect,the impact mechanism of the interaction between air pollution and environmental regulation on residents’healthare studied.The spatial spillover effects of air pollution and environmental regulation on residents’health are analyzed.Finally,based on the theoretical and empirical results,relevant policy recommendations are put forward.The main conclusions are as follows:Firstly,this paper analyzes the spatiotemporal characteristics of air pollution,environmental regulation and residents’health in China.It is found that the industrial SO₂emissions and PM_2.5concentration both show a trend of increasing first and then decreasing since the 1990s,and the PM_2.5concentration gradually decreases from east to west.Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region,Hebei Province and Henan Province have the highest average air quality index（AQI）,and the air quality was relatively poor.In terms of environmental regulation,the total number of local environmental laws and regulations issued each year,the ratio of investment in industrial pollution control to industrial added value,and the ratio of pollutant discharge fee to industrial added value are used to measure the intensity of environmental regulation formulation,implementation and supervision.It is found that the number of local environmental regulations formulated during 1997-2018 shows a fluctuating trend of decreasing first and then increasing.The implementation intensity and supervision intensity of environmental regulation both show a decreasing trend,and they are relatively high in North China.In terms of residents’health,since the reform and opening up,the mortality in China has shown an“N-shaped”curve that rises,then falls and then rises again.The four-week prevalence of air pollution-related diseases first increased and then decreased during 1993-2015.In terms of spatial distribution,areas with higher physical health indexes are mainly concentrated in the southwest and southeast coastal areas,while areas with higher mental health indexes and social adaptability indexes are mainly distributed in the north and the megacities such as Beijing,Shanghai and Tianjin.Secondly,the paper employs data from the 2015 China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study（CHARLS）to comprehensively study the health depreciation effect and medical cost effect of air pollution from the perspective of physical health,mental health,and social adaptability.This paper shows that air pollution can accelerate the depreciation of health capital.For each standard deviation increase in annual AQI,physical health,mental health,and social adaptability decrease by 3.12standard deviations,1.87standard deviations,and 1.30 standard deviations,respectively.Air pollution also leads to higher medical costs.For every unit increase in annual AQI,the medical expenses of middle-aged and elderly people over 45 years old increase by 64.229 billion yuan.Further study shows that the impacts of different pollutants are different,PM_2.5,PM₁₀and NO₂have significant health depreciation effect or medical cost effect.The long-term and short-term effects of Air pollution coexist.The negative effects on physical health mainly occur in the medium and long term over 9 months,while the depreciation of mental health and social adaptability is very significant over 0—9 months and 0—15 months,respectively.In addition,the impact of air pollution on health depreciation and medical costs also varies among different population groups and different regions.Gender,age,health status,regional economic development status,and regional medical resource status all cause the effects of air pollution tovary.At the same time,environmental regulation has a moderating effect on environmental health problems.With the improvement of the intensity of environmental regulation,the negative impact of air pollution on residents’health is weakened.Thirdly,using data from eight waves of China Health and Nutrition Survey（1993-2015）,this paper studies the health impact of different environmental regulations employing DID model.The results show that different environmental regulations have different impacts on residents’health.The command-controlled environmental regulations represented by the Two Control Zones（TCZ）can significantly reduce the four-week prevalence of air pollution-related diseases by44.58%（1.44 percentage points）.However,due to the imperfect market mechanism,the uncertainty of environmental policies and other reasons,the market incentive environmental regulations represented by the SO₂Emissions Trading Scheme（ETS）have no significant effect on residents’health.The two types of environmental regulations have not formed a good policy interaction.Further research shows that the effect of TCZ is most pronounced for respiratory illnesses,which significantly reduced the medical cost of respiratory diseases by 3.14%,and the impact is increasing in the length of the period it has been implemented.Based on the heterogeneity of population and region,it is found that the TCZ policy has a health compensation effect,and the population groups and regions which are more vulnerable to the harmful effects of air pollution will benefit more.Based on the mediation effect model to analyze the impact mechanism of environmental regulations on residents’health,it is found that the TCZ policy promotes residents’health by reducing pollution emissions.Fourthly,based on the panel data of 31 provinces,autonomous regions,and municipalities in China from 1998 to 2018,the spatial spillover effects of air pollution and environmental regulations on the residents’health are studied.It is found that the negative impact of air pollution on residents’health has significant spatial spillovers.With the increase of the geographical threshold,the spatial spillover effect of air pollution on the mortality shows a“Γ-shaped”curve,which first increases and then gradually stabilizes.Although environmental regulations can effectively reduce mortality,this health improvement effect does not have spatial spillovers.Evidence from the Two-Regime SDM shows that the race to the bottom in environmental regulations among regions（especially those with similar economic development）is the main reason why the health improvement effect has not achieved spatial spillover.Studies based on vulnerable populations show that the pregnant women are more vulnerable to the harmful effects of air pollution,and the environmental regulation has a significant spatial spillover effect on the health improvement of pregnant women.Research based on regional differences shows that compared with the central and western regions,when the eastern region improves environmental regulations or reduces air pollution,the mortality in its economic neighbors increases,this reflects that the race to the bottom in environmental regulations in the eastern region may be more common to a certain extent.Further study shows that air pollution is an important mediation variable for the impact of environmental regulations on residents’health,at the same time,the environmental regulations can effectively moderate the negative effects of air pollution on residents’health,but this mediation effect and moderating effect do not have spatial spillovers.Finally,based on the above conclusions,the paper puts forward policy suggestions to improve air quality and promote health development.In ecological environmental governance,it is necessary to clarify the focus of current air pollution prevention and control work,improve the environmental regulation system,promote the joint prevention and control of air pollution,perfect the evaluation system for the assessment of leading cadres,and change the pattern of economic development.In public health policy,physical,mental and social capacity health should be integrated into the environmental health work plan,the long-term environmental health work plans and emergency plans for heavy pollution should be developed,population groups at high risk of environmental health problems should be focused,and the equalization of basic public health services should be promoted.