Spatiotemporal assessment of health burden and economic losses attributable to short-term exposure to ground-level ozone during 2015–2018 in China

BACKGROUND: Ground-level ozone (O(3)) pollution is currently the one of the severe environmental problems in China. Although existing studies have quantified the O(3)-related health impact and economic loss, few have focused on the acute health effects of short-term exposure to O(3) and have been limited to a single temporal and spatial dimension. METHODS: Based on the O(3) concentration obtained from ground monitoring networks in 334 Chinese cities in 2015–2018, this study used a two-stage exposure parameter weighted Log-linear exposure-response function to estimate the cause-specific mortality for short-term exposure to O(3). RESULTS: The value of statistical life (VSL) method that were used to calculate the economic loss at the city-level. Our results show that in China, the national all-cause mortality attributed to O(3) was 0.27(95% CI: 0.14–0.55) to 0.39 (95% CI: 0.20–0.67) million across 2015–2018. The estimated economic loss caused by O(3) was 387.76 (95% CI: 195.99–904.50) to 594.08 (95% CI: 303.34–1140.65) billion CNY, accounting for 0.52 to 0.69% of total reported GDP. Overall, the O(3) attributed health and economic burden has begun to decline in China since 2017. However, highly polluted areas still face severe burden, and undeveloped areas suffer from high GDP losses. CONCLUSIONS: There are substantial health impacts and economic losses related to short-term O(3) exposure in China. The government should pay attention to the emerging ozone pollution, and continue to strengthen the intervention in traditional priority areas while solving the pollution problem in non-priority areas. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12889-021-10751-7.