IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/hlthec/v30y2021i2p478-488.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Air pollution and noncognitive traits among Chinese adolescents

Author

Listed:
  • Mengyao Li
  • Susana Ferreira
  • Travis A. Smith
  • Xin Zhang

Abstract

Most residents in developing countries live under poor air quality. The adverse effects of air pollution on cardiovascular and respiratory health are well documented. More recently, it has been shown that air pollution adversely affects areas of the central nervous system regulating noncognitive traits. Because the developing brain is particularly vulnerable, this study focuses on adolescents. We match air pollution data from monitoring stations in China to repeated measures of noncognitive traits using panel data. In general, poorer contemporaneous air quality, rather than poorer past air quality, negatively affects adolescent noncognitive traits. Specifically, an increase in the Air Pollution Index by 15 points—the average daily fluctuation—leads to a 5.5% increase in psychological distress, 0.9% decrease in self‐esteem, 3.2% reduction in self‐satisfaction, and 0.9% decrease in confidence in the future. No such effects are found among adults.

Suggested Citation

  • Mengyao Li & Susana Ferreira & Travis A. Smith & Xin Zhang, 2021. "Air pollution and noncognitive traits among Chinese adolescents," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(2), pages 478-488, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:30:y:2021:i:2:p:478-488
    DOI: 10.1002/hec.4193
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/hec.4193
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/hec.4193?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Chris Sampson’s journal round-up for 8th March 2021
      by Chris Sampson in The Academic Health Economists' Blog on 2021-03-08 12:00:01

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Mengna Luan & Zhigang Tao & Hongjie Yuan, 2023. "Alive but not well: The neglected cost of air pollution," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(11), pages 2535-2567, November.
    2. Beshir, H.A.; & Fichera, E.;, 2022. "“And Breathe Normally†: The Low Emission Zone impacts on health and well-being in England," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 22/09, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:hlthec:v:30:y:2021:i:2:p:478-488. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/jhome/5749 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.