Air Pollution Slashes Life Expectancy in China

Sustained exposure to air pollution resulting from China’s Huai River policy has led to an average 5.5 years drop in life expectancy in the Northern China population, according to a new study.

Researchers at Peking University (Beijing, China), the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Israel), and other institutions conducted a quasiexperimental empirical study based on China’s Huai River policy, which provided free winter heating via the provision of coal for boilers in cities north of the Huai River, but denied heat to the south. Based on distance from the Huai River, the researchers found that ambient concentrations of total suspended particles (TSPs) are about 184 μg/m3 (55%) higher in the north than in the south.


The results also indicate that life expectancies are about 5.5 years lower in the north, owing to an increased incidence of cardiorespiratory mortality, which on analysis suggests that long-term exposure to an additional 100 μg/m3 of TSPs is associated with a reduction in life expectancy at birth of about three years. The researchers calculated that the severe air pollution has cost the 500 million people living north of China's Huai River during the 1990s more than 2.5 billion years of aggregate life. The study was published on July 3, 2013, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS).

“The Chinese government established free winter heating of homes and offices via the provision of free coal for fuel boilers as a basic right. Even today, the long-lived heating systems continue to make indoor heating much more common in the north,” concluded lead author Prof. Yuyu Chen, PhD, of the Peking University department of applied economics, and colleagues. “The combustion of coal in boilers is associated with the release of air pollutants, and in particular emission of particulate matter that can be extremely harmful to human health.”

The Huai River policy dates a central planning policy from the 1950s, which for decades provided free winter heating to areas north of the river, while no such luxury was extended in the south due to budgetary restraints. The free heating was powered by coal boilers, which resulted in significantly higher levels of pollution. China now burns 3.8 billion tons of coal each year, nearly as much as the rest of the world combined, and CO2 emissions rose by 720 million tons in 2011, a 9.3% increase.

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