Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2013 Dec 9:347:f7139.
doi: 10.1136/bmj.f7139.

The burden of air pollution on years of life lost in Beijing, China, 2004-08: retrospective regression analysis of daily deaths

Yuming Guo  1 , Shanshan Li, Zhaoxing Tian, Xiaochuan Pan, Jinliang Zhang, Gail Williams
Affiliations

The burden of air pollution on years of life lost in Beijing, China, 2004-08: retrospective regression analysis of daily deaths

Yuming Guo et al. BMJ. .

Abstract

Objectives: To better understand the burden of air pollution on deaths, we examined the effects of air pollutants on years of life lost (YLL) in Beijing, China.

Design: Retrospective regression analysis using daily time series.

Setting: 8 urban districts in Beijing, China.

Participants: 80 515 deaths (48 802 male, 31 713 female) recorded by the Beijing death classification system during 2004-08.

Main outcome measures: Associations between daily YLL and ambient air pollutants (particulate matter with aerodynamic diameter <2.5 µm (PM2.5), PM10, SO2, and NO2), after adjusting for long term trends, seasonality, day of the week, and weather conditions. We also examined mortality risk related to air pollutants.

Results: Mean concentrations of daily PM2.5, PM10, SO2 and NO2 were 105.1 μg/m(3), 144.6 μg/m(3), 48.6 μg/m(3), and 64.2 μg/m(3), respectively. All air pollutants had significant effects on years of life lost when we used single pollutant models. An interquartile range (IQR) increase in PM2.5, PM10, SO2, and NO2 was related to YLL increases of 15.8, 15.8, 16.2, and 15.1 years, respectively. The effects of air pollutants on YLL appeared acutely and lasted for two days (lag 0-1); these effects associated with an IQR increase in PM2.5 were greater in women than men (11.1 (95% confidence interval 4.7 to 17.5) v 4.7 (-2.9 to 12.3) YLL) and in people aged up to 65 years than those older than 65 years (12.0 (2.9 to 21) v 3.8 (-0.9 to 8.6) YLL). The mortality risk associated with an IQR increase in PM2.5 was greater for people older than 65 years (2.5% (95% confidence interval 0.6% to 4.5%) increase of mortality) than those aged up to 65 years (0.7% (-0.8% to 2.2%)).

Conclusions: YLL provides a complementary measure for examining the effect of air pollutants on mortality. Increased YLL are associated with increased air pollution. This study highlights the need to reduce air pollution in Beijing, China, to protect the health of the population.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: All authors have completed the ICMJE uniform disclosure form at www.icmje.org/coi_disclosure.pdf and declare: support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the Australia National Health and Medical Research Council for the submitted work; YG is supported by the Centre for Air Quality and Health Research and Evaluation and the University of Queensland School of Population Health; no other relationships or activities that could appear to have influenced the submitted work.

Figures

None
Fig 1 Boxplots of monthly YLL and death counts in Beijing, China, during 2004-08, according to sex and age
None
Fig 2 Association between air pollutants (lag 0-1 day) and YLL in Beijing China, during 2004-08. A natural cubic spline with four degrees of freedom for air pollutants was included in the single pollutant models, while controlling for seasonality, day of the week, temperature, relative humidity, and air pressure
None
Fig 3 Association between increased interquartile range in air pollutants and YLL (top) and percentage increase of deaths (bottom) for non-accidental deaths using single pollutant models at different lag days, during 2004-08. Results were controlled for seasonality, day of the week, temperature, relative humidity, and air pressure. Interquartile ranges were 94 μg/m3 for PM2.5, 106 μg/m3 for PM10, 49 μg/m3 for SO2, and 30 μg/m3 for NO2
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment in

  • Where there's smoke . .
    Brauer M, Mancini GB. Brauer M, et al. BMJ. 2014 Jan 21;348:g40. doi: 10.1136/bmj.g40. BMJ. 2014. PMID: 24448641 No abstract available.

References

    1. Chan CK, Yao X. Air pollution in mega cities in China. Atmos Environ 2008;42:1-42.
    1. Ouyang Y. China wakes up to the crisis of air pollution. Lancet Resp Med 2013;1:12. - PubMed
    1. World Health Organization. WHO air quality guidelines for particulate matter, ozone, nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide. Global update 2005, summary of risk assessment. WHO, 2006.
    1. Lim SS, Vos T, Flaxman AD, Dannaei G, Shibuya K, Adair-Rohani H, et al. A comparative risk assessment of burden of disease and injury attributable to 67 risk factors and risk factor clusters in 21 regions, 1990-2010: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010. Lancet 2013;380:2224-60. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Johnston FH, Hanigan IC, Henderson SB, Morgan GG. Evaluation of interventions to reduce air pollution from biomass smoke on mortality in Launceston, Australia: retrospective analysis of daily mortality, 1994-2007. BMJ 2013;346:e8446. - PMC - PubMed

Publication types

MeSH terms