Particulate air pollution in urban areas of Shanghai, China: health-based economic assessment

Urban air quality is becoming a serious public health concern in China. To obtain the quantitative result of the impact of particulate air pollution on human health and the subsequent economic costs in Shanghai, we used epidemiology-based exposure–response functions to calculate the attributable number of cases due to particulate air pollution in urban areas of Shanghai in 2001, and then we estimated the corresponding economic costs of the health damage based on unit values of the health outcomes. It was estimated that the total economic cost of health impacts due to particulate air pollution in urban areas of Shanghai in 2001 was approximately 625.40 million US dollars, accounting for 1.03% of gross domestic product of the city. The results suggest that the impact of particulate air pollution on human health could be substantial in urban Shanghai, whether in physical and economic terms.