David Brill
Abandoning your condo and moving to a poorer neighborhood might be good for your health if you live in a developing country, new research suggests.
The study of 7,358 elderly residents of Chinese cities found that those who lived in the wealthiest areas were more susceptible to the damaging effects of air pollution than those living in less prosperous parts of town.
An equivalent increase in pollution levels was linked to worse cognitive function, poorer self-reported health and greater difficulties with activities of daily living among residents of the highest GDP neighborhoods compared with the lowest.
The findings are at odds with research from Western populations which has found that the poorer the neighborhood, the greater the exposure to air pollution and the worse its effects on health. [Environ Health Perspect 2003 Dec;111(16):1861-70]
The new study shows that the relationship between air pollution and health in developing economies is more complex than previously thought, one of the researchers said.
“People tend to think in developing countries that when there’s more development there should be higher pollution but that is not what we’ve found. We showed that there is no clear correlation between the economic development level and the air pollution level,” said Rongjun Sun, an associate professor of sociology at Cleveland State University, US.
“The major message of our paper is that air pollution does have a dramatic impact on the health of the elderly but it’s not as simple as people imagine. I think when we look at this we will have to take a longer-term perspective.”
The researchers used data from the third wave of the Chinese Longitudinal Health Longevity Survey, conducted in 2002. Over-65s from 735 districts in 171 cities were included in the analysis. [Am J Epidemiol 2008 Dec 1;168(11):1311-8]
The reasons for the apparent discrepancy between East and West are not clear but may reflect differences in the usage of natural resources at the different stages of economic development, suggested Sun.
History suggests that as countries develop they move from industrial economies to more service-based economies, eventually becoming richer and reaching the position where they can begin to address the quality of the environment, he added.
Abandoning your condo and moving to a poorer neighborhood might be good for your health if you live in a developing country, new research suggests.
The study of 7,358 elderly residents of Chinese cities found that those who lived in the wealthiest areas were more susceptible to the damaging effects of air pollution than those living in less prosperous parts of town.
An equivalent increase in pollution levels was linked to worse cognitive function, poorer self-reported health and greater difficulties with activities of daily living among residents of the highest GDP neighborhoods compared with the lowest.
The findings are at odds with research from Western populations which has found that the poorer the neighborhood, the greater the exposure to air pollution and the worse its effects on health. [Environ Health Perspect 2003 Dec;111(16):1861-70]
The new study shows that the relationship between air pollution and health in developing economies is more complex than previously thought, one of the researchers said.
“People tend to think in developing countries that when there’s more development there should be higher pollution but that is not what we’ve found. We showed that there is no clear correlation between the economic development level and the air pollution level,” said Rongjun Sun, an associate professor of sociology at Cleveland State University, US.
“The major message of our paper is that air pollution does have a dramatic impact on the health of the elderly but it’s not as simple as people imagine. I think when we look at this we will have to take a longer-term perspective.”
The researchers used data from the third wave of the Chinese Longitudinal Health Longevity Survey, conducted in 2002. Over-65s from 735 districts in 171 cities were included in the analysis. [Am J Epidemiol 2008 Dec 1;168(11):1311-8]
The reasons for the apparent discrepancy between East and West are not clear but may reflect differences in the usage of natural resources at the different stages of economic development, suggested Sun.
History suggests that as countries develop they move from industrial economies to more service-based economies, eventually becoming richer and reaching the position where they can begin to address the quality of the environment, he added.
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