State Key Lab of CAD&CG, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China.
Department of Economics, Rice University, Houston, TX, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2021 May 19;16(5):e0251288. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0251288. eCollection 2021.
To measure the effects of air pollution on human activities, this study applies statistical/econometric modeling to hourly data of 9 million mobile phone users from six cities in China's Zhejiang Province from December 18 to 21, 2013. Under a change in air quality from "Good" (Air Quality Index, or AQI, between 51 and 100) to "Heavily Polluted" (AQI between 201 to 300), the following effects are demonstrated. (i) Consistent with the literature, for every one million people, 1, 482 fewer individuals are observed at parks, 95% confidence interval or CI (-2, 229, -735), which represents a 15% decrease. (ii) The number of individuals at shopping malls has no statistically significant change. (iii) Home is the most important location under worsening air quality, and for every one million people, 63, 088 more individuals are observed at home, 95% CI (47, 815, 78, 361), which represents a 19% increase. (iv) Individuals are on average 633 meters closer to their home, 95% CI (529, 737); as a benchmark, the median distance from home ranges from 300 to 1900 meters across the cities in our sample. These effects are not due to weather or government regulations. We also provided provisional evidence that individuals engage in inter-temporal activity substitutions within a day, which leads to mitigated (but not nullified) effects of air pollution on daily activities.
为了衡量空气污染对人类活动的影响，本研究运用统计/计量经济学模型，分析了 2013 年 12 月 18 日至 21 日中国浙江省六个城市的 900 万手机用户的每小时数据。在空气质量从“良好”（空气质量指数，AQI 在 51 到 100 之间）变为“重度污染”（AQI 在 201 到 300 之间）的情况下，以下效应得到了验证。（i）与文献一致，每 100 万人中，观察到在公园的人数减少了 1482 人，95%置信区间（CI）为（-2，229，-735），这意味着减少了 15%。（ii）购物中心的人数没有统计学上的显著变化。（iii）在空气质量恶化的情况下，家是最重要的地点，每 100 万人中，观察到在家的人数增加了 63088 人，95%CI（47，815，78，361），这意味着增加了 19%。（iv）人们平均离家更近 633 米，95%CI（529，737）；作为基准，中位数离家距离在我们样本中的城市范围内从 300 米到 1900 米不等。这些效应不是由于天气或政府法规造成的。我们还提供了初步证据表明，个人在一天内进行跨时活动替代，从而减轻（但没有消除）空气污染对日常活动的影响。
