AUTHOR=Xu Xianmang , Zhang Wen , Shi Xiaofeng , Su Zhi , Cheng Wei , Wei Yinuo , Ma He , Li Tinglong , Wang Zhenhua TITLE=China’s air quality improvement strategy may already be having a positive effect: evidence based on health risk assessment JOURNAL=Frontiers in Public Health VOLUME=Volume 11 - 2023 YEAR=2023 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/public-health/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2023.1250572 DOI=10.3389/fpubh.2023.1250572 ISSN=2296-2565 ABSTRACT=Aiming to investigate the health risk impact of PM2.5 pollution on a heavily populated province of China. The exposure response function was used to assess the health risk of PM2.5 pollution. Results shows that the total number of premature deaths and diseases reltated to PM2.5 pollution in Shandong might reach 159.8 thousand people based on the new WHO (2021) standards. The health effects of PM2.5 pollution were more severe in men than in women. Five of the sixteen cities in Shandong had higher health risks caused by PM2.5 pollution, including LinYi, HeZe, JiNing, JiNan and WeiFang. PM2.5 pollution resulted in nearly 7.4 billions dollars in healthy economic cost, which accounted for 0.57% of GDP in Shandong in 2021. HeZe, LiaoCheng, ZaoZhuang, and LinYi were the cities where the health economic loss