Thesis Proposal Review: Health Impacts of Ambient PM2.5 Pollution across Regions and Age Groups in China

Central Television Tower, China

About

With rapid urbanization and economic growth powered by coal-dominated fossil fuel consumption, air pollution has become a persistent and severe problem in China. Of all the air pollutants, ambient PM2.5 is a leading health risk factor, according to the Global Burden of Disease study. Epidemiological studies show that exposure to PM2.5 can lead to cardiovascular and respiratory morbidity and mortality. Also, China’s population is expected to age fast in the next few decades due to the one child policy, which may potentially amplify the health costs of air pollution as the older population is more vulnerable to air pollution. In 2020, China announced its commitment of achieving net zero emission by 2060, which will affect air pollution and its related health costs in the future.

This thesis aims to first estimate age-and disease-specific deaths attributable to ambient PM2.5 in 31 provinces of China in the past (2010-2018), using the Global Exposure Mortality Model, and also to evaluate the relative contributions of four individual factors: population growth, population aging, PM2.5 concentration and baseline mortality rate to the total mortality change during the study period. Then it will explore the socioeconomic drivers of PM2.5 pollution in China. In the next part, the research will consider the effects of population age structure and estimate economic costs on both national and provincial level, using the age-adjusted value of a statistical life year (VSLY). For health costs of PM2.5 projection in the future, this thesis will use the GAINS-China model to project future PM2.5 concentration in the context of net zero emission, and then estimate attributable mortality and related economic costs.

Bio

LeiLei Wan is a PhD student with the Environment, Climate, and Health Group at the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health. She holds a master degree of Environmental Engineering and prior to commencing her PhD, she worked as a research assistant in several projects on economic and environmental consulting. Lei is supervised by Prof Sotiris Vardoulakis, Prof Xuemei Bai and Dr Nina Lazarevic. Her research interests include the health effects of air pollution, climate change and health and environmental sustainability.