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. 2022 Apr 26;22(1):835.
doi: 10.1186/s12889-022-13240-7.

Determining the effect of air quality on activities of daily living disability: using tracking survey data from 122 cities in China

Huan Liu  1
Affiliations

Determining the effect of air quality on activities of daily living disability: using tracking survey data from 122 cities in China

Huan Liu. BMC Public Health. .

Abstract

Background: Current research on activities of daily living (ADLs) disability has mostly focused on the analysis of demographic characteristics, while research on the microcharacteristics of individuals and the macroenvironment is relatively limited, and these studies solely concern the impact of air quality on individual health.

Methods: This study innovatively investigated the impact of air quality on ADL disability by matching micro data of individuals from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study with data of urban environmental quality from 122 cities. In this study, an ordered panel logit model was adopted for the benchmark test, and the two-stage ordered probit model with IV was used for endogenous treatment.

Results: This innovative study investigated the impact of air quality on ADL disability by matching individual micro data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study with urban environmental quality data for 122 cities. The results showed that air quality significantly increased the probability of ADL disability. The positive and marginal effect of air quality on moderate and mild disability was higher. Generally, the marginal effect of air quality on residents' health was negative. In terms of group heterogeneity, the ADL disability of individuals aged over 60 years, those in the high Gross Domestic Product (GDP) group, females, and those in the nonpilot long-term care insurance group was more affected by air quality, and the interaction between air quality and serious illness showed that the deterioration of air quality exacerbated the ADL disability caused by serious illness; that is, the moderating effect was significant.

Conclusions: According to the equilibrium condition of the individual health production function, the ADL disability caused by a 1% improvement in air quality is equivalent to the ADL disability caused by an 89.9652% reduction in serious illness, indicating that the effect of improved air quality is difficult to replace by any other method. Therefore, good air quality can not only reduce ADL disability directly but also reduce serious illness indirectly, which is equivalent to the reduction of ADL disability. This is called the health impact.

Keywords: ADL disability; Air quality; CHARLS; Ordered logit; Pollutants.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Theoretical mechanism of the impact of air pollution on Residents’ ADL disability
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Effect of air pollution on the ADL disability of residents
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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