Abstract:
Quantitative evaluation of the health impacts of reducing indoor and outdoor O
3 levels is crucial for O
3 pollution control. Based on the differences in indoor and outdoor O
3 concentrations, this paper used city-specific exposure factors and exposure-response models to simulate and predict the health benefits of meeting different indoor and outdoor air quality standards. The results indicated that: (1) In 2020, the number of all-cause mortalities attributed to short-term and long-term exposure to O
3 pollution in 337 prefecture-level and above cities in China were 44,400 and 137,237, respectively. The corresponding economic losses were 237.5 billion RMB and 736.7 billion RMB, respectively, accounting for 0.23% and 0.73% of the country′s GDP of that year, respectively. (2) Meeting the current
Indoor Air Quality Standard (GB/T 18883-2022) (160 μg/m
3) and
Assessment Standard for Healthy Building (T/ASC 02-2021) (112 μg/m
3) of O
3 cannot bring health benefits. When the daily indoor O
3 standard concentration in cities were 60, 40, 30, 20 and 10 μg/m
3, the avoidable all-cause mortality losses (long-term exposure) were 90, 3,931, 16,191, 48,861 and 85,584 cases, respectively, and the corresponding avoidable economic losses were 7×10
8, 255×10
8, 971×10
8, 2,787×10
8, 4,681×10
8 RMB, respectively. (3) When the daily outdoor O
3 standard concentration in the city were 160, 100, 80, 70 and 60 μg/m
3, the avoidable all-cause mortality losses (long-term exposure) were 6,044, 46,090, 78,888, 100,160, 124,649 cases, respectively, and the corresponding avoidable economic losses were 355×10
8, 2,548×10
8, 4,298×10
8, 5,420×10
8 and 6,700×10
8 RMB, respectively. The research results show that reducing indoor O
3 concentration can effectively reduce ozone-related health effects and economic losses. It is recommended that Shandong Province, Henan Province, Jiangsu Province, Guangdong Province and other regions implement stricter regional O
3 air quality standards as a priority.