Population Migration And Its Concomitant Air Pollution Health Effect

China is confronted with many challenges posed by the massive population movement over the past three decades.As an important factor in social and economic development,population migration plays an important role in rearranging regional population structure,optimizing regional human resources as well as changing the exposure levels of the public to air pollution.Adopting ambient PM2.5 pollution as the health risk indicator,this study used China's 2000 and 2010 Population Census data and the satellite derived PM2.5 pollution level data to estimate health damages caused by China's population migration trends.The main conclusions are as follows:i.China's floating population has migrated to cities with relatively low PM2.5 concentration levels in general.Population migration resulted in a reduction of 0.6?g/m3 and 1.5?g/m3 estimated population-weighted exposure(PWE)in 2000 and 2010 respectively,which avoided about 456 and 801 cases of premature deaths caused by stroke,ischemic disease and lung cancer.ii.Different migration patterns had accompanied significantly different health effects.For inter-provincial migration,the out-migration trends from Sichuan,Henan and Anhui bring more health benefits partly due to the huge immigrant populations and relatively high PM2.5 concentration levels in these origin provinces.Each provinces have reduced by more than 450 cases of premature deaths in 2010.Most floating population from Heilongjiang,Fujian and Inner Mongolia has immigrated to places with relatively bad air quality such as Beijing,Jiangsu and Shandong.For floating population from these places,inter-provincial migration will bring them health burdens,with about 300 excess cases of premature deaths for each province in 2010,when they plan to gain higher salaries and better standards of living through migration.In addition,a large-scale of migration also occurred between provinces in China,which have brought adverse health impacts in general except for seven provinces including Jiangsu and Shandong.iii.Air pollution has gradually become an important livelihood issues in China,as well as a key driver of population mobility,affecting the future of China's social structure.Middle class people in some cities are putting air quality into their living choice consideration.For Sichuan,Henan,Anhui,Hubei and other migration origins,serious air pollution will become an important obstacle to the return of labor force and their leapfrog development.For Jiangsu,Tianjing,Hebei and other main migration destinations,poor air quality of these regions will have negative impact on their attractiveness and long-term competiveness.The emerging "environmental migration"trend is affecting China's future social structure.Local governments should take the air pollution situation into account during the development of relevant population policies and talents' introduction policies,promoting a more stringent air pollution control plan to improve air quality and the attractiveness of those regions.