环境保护论文(英文).pdf

the effect of air pollution on human health in china a macro evaluation zhigang chen xianjin huang school of geographic human health effect evaluation health production function china i introduction it is well known that the harm of air pollution to human health is relatively serious and direct it s ever estimated by world health organization who that there are 2 7 million people died of air pollution around the world every year 1 also it s indicated by the research of american cancer association that with the rising of each 10 g m3 fine particulates in air the fatalness of total mortality corpulmonale mortality and lung cancer mortality will be increased by 4 6 and 8 respectively 2 at present china is at the rapid advancement stage of industrialization and urbanization a large amount of air pollutants discharged by industrial production and resident s living including dust sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides etc will inevitably do harm to human health in order to explore the effect of air pollution on human health in china the scholars have developed further and systematical research from the existing literatures the researches on the effect of air pollution on human health in china are mainly epidemiological studies and risk evaluation based on investigation data 3 it is very helpful to grasp the relationship between related diseases and air pollution but goes against the overall control of the effect of air pollution on human heath of environmental management departments this paper is trying to build a health production function based on related macro statistical data to evaluate the effect of air pollution on human health in china to provide decision basis for the improvement of related environmental control policies ii air pollution and human health general description air is one of the important environmental factors for living beings to live which is directly involved in the living activities of human including metabolism and thermoregulation etc consequently once the air is polluted human health will certainly be seriously influenced the effect of air pollution on human health is manifested in many aspects the first is the harm of inhalable particulates to human health inhalable particulates can be inhaled into bronchus and lung by breathing and cause sediment hence induce lung disease and cardiovascular disease etc these fine particulates are also carriers of poisonous and harmful elements like bacteria virus heavy metal and organic compounds etc and can cause carcinogenesis and cancer promoting the second is the harm of sulfur dioxide to human health sulfur dioxide takes part in oxidation reaction in the atmosphere and generates acid mist which has acute stimulation to eye conjunctiva nasal cavity and respiratory tract mucosa of people and cause pulmonary inflammation and pulmonary edema in severe case 4 the third is the harm of nitrogen oxide to human health under general conditions when the pollutant is mainly of nitrogen dioxide the harm to lung will be more apparent and may cause lesions mainly of pulmonary edema in severe case while in case there is a large amount of nitric oxide in mixed gas methemoglobinemia and central nervous system involvement will appear the forth is the harm of hydrogen sulfide gas and carbon monoxide to human health hydrogen sulfide gas has influence on respiratory system circulatory system digestive system endocrine system and nervous system and carbon monoxide is one kind of toxicant which is harmful to blood and nerve the fifth is the harm of photochemical smog to human health photochemical smog is mainly formed by the photochemical reaction of nitrogen oxide and hydrocarbon of automobile exhausts under the action of intense sunlight which will make the eyes throat and this work was sponsored by the industry research project for public welfare of the mlr of china 200811033 and the talent cultivation project of the moe of china ncet 05 0451 corresponding author xianjin huang 978 1 4244 2902 8 09 25 00 2009 ieee 1 extremities of the victim feel unwell and even cause consciousness disturbance in severe case 5 from the research of related fields at present some scholars have developed further epidemiological studies on air pollution in major cities of china including beijing shanghai guangzhou shenyang and so on these studies approve that air pollution has close relation with the increase of morbidity and mortality of respiratory system diseases and circulatory system diseases 6 iii evaluation of effects of air pollution on human health the above general description of the relationship between air pollution and human health is only the brief analysis based on related research achievements of epidemiology however in order to make a general evaluation of health effect of air pollution from national or regional level it is necessary to carry out concretely by means of macro evaluation model a evaluation model health production function according to modern medical theory human health depends on various factors including environmental factor living style and behavior factor biological inheritance factor medical and hygiene service factor and so on 7 therefore in order to evaluate the effect of air pollution on human health from macro level it is obvious that other factors shall not be neglected for this the health production function proposed by grossman based on health demand model provides an ideal model foundation to us grossman considers health as a kind of commodity and people invest for self health including purchasing commodities related with health paying hygiene on the 2 other hand it can also avoid the neglect of regional development characteristics while just using time series data for estimation c estimated results based on above data we select three periods for model estimation respectively 2001 2007 2001 2004 and 2004 2007 therefore we can not only master the overall effect of air pollution on human health from 2001 to 2007 but also primarily understand the changes of health effects of air pollution during this period on the selection of model estimation method firstly we estimate the model by applying ordinary least squares ols then considering that the data selected here are panel data we also adopt generalized least squares gls in addition to ols for model estimation table and table list the ols and gls results of model estimation respectively table i the ols results of model estimation variables estimated coefficients 2001 2007 2001 2004 2004 2007 c 2 050 18 811 2 001 13 310 1 921 10 520 ln pg 0 027 2 192 0 022 1 270 0 011 0 551 ln ph 0 099 3 579 0 079 2 294 0 149 3 429 ln pa 0 009 1 922 0 009 1 388 0 008 1 309 adj r2 0 170 0 121 0 191 f statistic 15 728 6 632 10 653 note the value in the brackets is the t value of the corresponding coefficient and respectively means that the significant level of the statistical test is 10 5 and 1 table ii the gls results of model estimation variables estimated coefficients 2001 2007 2001 2004 2004 2007 c 2 062 35 100 1 936 25 836 2 017 18 711 ln pg 0 031 5 039 0 017 2 117 0 026 2 155 ln ph 0 092 8 360 0 085 7 845 0 127 6 191 ln pa 0 015 5 279 0 013 3 798 0 016 5 372 adjusted r2 0 998 0 999 0 998 f statistic 43357 51789 26906 note the value in the brackets is the t value of the corresponding coefficient and respectively means that the significant level of the statistical test is 10 5 and 1 judging from the overall results of model estimation the estimated results of gls are much better than those of ols for the former not only greatly improve the goodness of fit adjusted r2 of model estimation but also improve the significance level of most of estimated coefficients the main reason why the estimated results of gls are better than those of ols is that gls estimation can reduce the bias caused by multicollinearity and heteroscedasticity that may exist simultaneously in panel data therefore here we shall analyze the concrete effect of air pollution on human health from the following two aspects according to gls estimation results on one hand per capita gdp the index reflecting economy living conditions and number of doctors per thousand people the index reflecting hygiene medical conditions have significant positive effect on human health according to the corresponding elastic coefficients we can see that from 2001 to 2007 with the rising of each 1 per capita gdp or number of doctors per thousand people the human mortality will be decreased by 0 03 and 0 09 respectively taking 2004 as the watershed the positive effect of economy living conditions and hygiene medical conditions on human health during 2004 2007 is obviously better than that during 2001 2004 it is obvious that the positive effect of economic development and improvement of hygiene medical conditions on human health in china is expanding on the other hand the index reflecting air pollution degree has obvious negative effect on human health according to the corresponding elastic coefficient we can see that from 2001 to 2007 with the rising of each 1 air pollution degree the human mortality will be increased by 0 015 also taking 2004 as the watershed we can conclude that the negative effect of air pollution on human health shall tend to reinforcement in table 1 we can see that the influencing elasticity 0 016 of air pollution on mortality during 2004 2007 is obviously higher than that of 2001 2004 0 013 it is obvious that the negative effect of air pollution on human health in china is expanding therefore in order to improve the health level of chinese population we must strictly control air pollution and expedite the pollution treatment iv conclusions based on the general description of the relationship between air pollution and human health this paper has brought factors of air pollution into health production function model and evaluated the effect of air pollution on human health in china by applying related macro statistical data the results show that from 2001 to 2007 with the rising of each 1 air pollution degree in china the human mortality will be increased by nearly 0 015 while from the influence variation of air pollution on human health around 2004 we can see that the influencing elasticity of air pollution on human mortality after 2004 is increased by 23 than that before 2004 of course the results of positive analysis also reveal that the improvement of both economic living conditions and hygiene medical conditions would promote the health conditions of population in china therefore in order to improve the human health conditions in china on one hand related environmental control policies must be optimized especially the strict control of discharge of air pollutants and harnessing strength of air pollution on the other hand it is also one of the important measures to improve the health conditions 3 of population in china that promote sustainable economic development and improve hygiene medical conditions references 1 who who guidelines for air quality fact sheet no 187 2003 2 c g cai x y zheng the payment of the human health loss caused by air pollution in beijing economic science 2007 no 1 pp 107 115 3 committee of environment chinese academy of engineering the effect of environment pollution on human health the proceedings of international workshop of environment pol