The assessment of health impact caused by energy use in urban areas of China: an intake fraction–based analysis

The coal-dominated fossil fuel has sustained China’s rapid development in the last 30 years. However, the massive coal combustion also contributed to a heavy burden of illness and health damage through air pollution. Currently, the main air pollutant particulate and sulfur levels in major Chinese cities are among the highest worldwide, and China is the largest source of SO<Subscript>2</Subscript> emission in the world. For the sustainable development and harmonious society building, it is necessary and urgent to assess the health impacts caused by China’s air pollution. The intake fraction is a relatively new measure to assess the health risk caused by air pollution. It can capture the relationship between pollution source and the specific health impacts. We applied the intake fraction and dose–response relationship to estimate Chinese urban people health impacts and assess the economic loss of these impacts from the perspective of sector level. According to our estimation, the health impacts accounted for between 0.82 and 4.85% of 2007 GDP if only combustion emission was included. The electricity, some tertiary sectors, coking, non-metal material, paper, transportation, and ferrous sectors contributed most to the damage. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012