IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v18y2021i13p6883-d583033.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Assessing the Country-Level Excess All-Cause Mortality and the Impacts of Air Pollution and Human Activity during the COVID-19 Epidemic

Author

Listed:
  • Yuan Meng

    (Department of Land Surveying and Geo-Informatics, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong)

  • Man Sing Wong

    (Department of Land Surveying and Geo-Informatics, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong
    Research Institute for Sustainable Urban Development, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong)

  • Hanfa Xing

    (School of Geography, South China Normal University, Guangzhou 510000, China
    College of Geography and Environment, Shandong Normal University, Jinan 250000, China)

  • Mei-Po Kwan

    (Department of Geography and Resource Management, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
    Institute of Space and Earth Information Science, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
    Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Utrecht University, 3584 CB Utrecht, The Netherlands)

  • Rui Zhu

    (Department of Land Surveying and Geo-Informatics, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong)

Abstract

The impact of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) on cause-specific mortality has been investigated on a global scale. However, less is known about the excess all-cause mortality and air pollution-human activity responses. This study estimated the weekly excess all-cause mortality during COVID-19 and evaluated the impacts of air pollution and human activities on mortality variations during the 10th to 52nd weeks of 2020 among sixteen countries. A SARIMA model was adopted to estimate the mortality benchmark based on short-term mortality during 2015–2019 and calculate excess mortality. A quasi-likelihood Poisson-based GAM model was further applied for air pollution/human activity response evaluation, namely ground-level NO 2 and PM 2.5 and the visit frequencies of parks and workplaces. The findings showed that, compared with COVID-19 mortality (i.e., cause-specific mortality), excess all-cause mortality changed from −26.52% to 373.60% during the 10th to 52nd weeks across the sixteen countries examined, revealing higher excess all-cause mortality than COVID-19 mortality in most countries. For the impact of air pollution and human activities, the average country-level relative risk showed that one unit increase in weekly NO 2 , PM 2.5 , park visits and workplace visits was associated with approximately 1.54% increase and 0.19%, 0.23%, and 0.23% decrease in excess all-cause mortality, respectively. Moreover, compared with the impact on COVID-19 mortality, the relative risks of weekly NO 2 and PM 2.5 were lower, and the relative risks of weekly park and workplace visits were higher for excess all-cause mortality. These results suggest that the estimation based on excess all-cause mortality reduced the potential impact of air pollution and enhanced the influence of human activities compared with the estimation based on COVID-19 mortality.

Suggested Citation

  • Yuan Meng & Man Sing Wong & Hanfa Xing & Mei-Po Kwan & Rui Zhu, 2021. "Assessing the Country-Level Excess All-Cause Mortality and the Impacts of Air Pollution and Human Activity during the COVID-19 Epidemic," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(13), pages 1-16, June.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:13:p:6883-:d:583033
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/13/6883/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/13/6883/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Erik Brynjolfsson & John J. Horton & Adam Ozimek & Daniel Rock & Garima Sharma & Hong-Yi TuYe, 2020. "COVID-19 and Remote Work: An Early Look at US Data," NBER Working Papers 27344, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Venter, Zander & Barton, David & gundersen, vegard & Figari, Helene & Nowell, Megan, 2020. "Urban nature in a time of crisis: recreational use of green space increases during the COVID-19 outbreak in Oslo, Norway," SocArXiv kbdum, Center for Open Science.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Thomas Astell-Burt & Xiaoqi Feng, 2021. "Time for ‘Green’ during COVID-19? Inequities in Green and Blue Space Access, Visitation and Felt Benefits," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(5), pages 1-21, March.
    2. Raymond Hernandez & Elizabeth A. Pyatak & Cheryl L. P. Vigen & Haomiao Jin & Stefan Schneider & Donna Spruijt-Metz & Shawn C. Roll, 2021. "Understanding Worker Well-Being Relative to High-Workload and Recovery Activities across a Whole Day: Pilot Testing an Ecological Momentary Assessment Technique," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(19), pages 1-17, October.
    3. Carlos Díaz & Sebastian Fossati & Nicolás Trajtenberg, 2022. "Stay at home if you can: COVID‐19 stay‐at‐home guidelines and local crime," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 19(4), pages 1067-1113, December.
    4. Louis-Philippe Beland & Abel Brodeur & Taylor Wright, 2020. "COVID-19, Stay-at-Home Orders and Employment: Evidence from CPS Data," Carleton Economic Papers 20-04, Carleton University, Department of Economics, revised 19 May 2020.
    5. Bruno Marques & Jacqueline McIntosh & Chitrakala Muthuveerappan & Krzysztof Herman, 2022. "The Importance of Outdoor Spaces during the COVID-19 Lockdown in Aotearoa—New Zealand," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(12), pages 1-17, June.
    6. Radu Vranceanu & Angela Sutan, 2023. "Should the firm or the employee pay for upskilling? A contract theory approach," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 44(1), pages 197-207, January.
    7. Sangeeta Gupta & Poonam Devdutt & Urmila Jagadeeswari Itam, 2022. "Centrality of psychological well-being of IT employees during COVID-19 and beyond," DECISION: Official Journal of the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, Springer;Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, vol. 49(4), pages 365-380, December.
    8. Hui, Ling Chui & Jim, C.Y., 2022. "Urban-greenery demands are affected by perceptions of ecosystem services and disservices, and socio-demographic and environmental-cultural factors," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    9. Filippos Petroulakis, 2023. "Task Content and Job Losses in the Great Lockdown," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 76(3), pages 586-613, May.
    10. Elstner, Steffen & Grimme, Christian & Kecht, Valentin & Lehmann, Robert, 2022. "The diffusion of technological progress in ICT," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).
    11. Bergeaud, Antonin & Eyméoud, Jean-Benoît & Garcia, Thomas & Henricot, Dorian, 2023. "Working from home and corporate real estate," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    12. Ko, Eun-Jung & Kim, A-Hyun & Kim, Sang-Soo, 2021. "Toward the understanding of the appropriation of ICT-based Smart-work and its impact on performance in organizations," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 171(C).
    13. Malik, Khyati & Kim, Sowon & Cultice, Brian J., 2023. "The impact of remote work on green space values in regional housing markets," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    14. Hamish Low & Michaela Benzeval & Jon Burton & Thomas F. Crossley & Paul Fisher & Annette Jäckle & Brendan Read, 2020. "The Idiosyncratic Impact of an Aggregate Shock The Distributional Consequences of COVID-19," Economics Series Working Papers 911, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    15. Hoffmann, Christin & Thommes, Kirsten, 2024. "Can leaders motivate employees’ energy-efficient behavior with thoughtful communication?," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    16. Luyang Chen & Lingbo Liu & Hao Wu & Zhenghong Peng & Zhihao Sun, 2022. "Change of Residents’ Attitudes and Behaviors toward Urban Green Space Pre- and Post- COVID-19 Pandemic," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(7), pages 1-16, July.
    17. Giorgio Gnecco & Sara Landi & Massimo Riccaboni, 2024. "The emergence of social soft skill needs in the post COVID-19 era," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 58(1), pages 647-680, February.
    18. Ina Kern & Philip Emmerich & Anna Lübbe, 2023. "How to Enable Trust While Transforming Teamwork from a Face-to-Face to a Virtual Environment in the Context of COVID-19," Central European Business Review, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2023(5), pages 117-149.
    19. Ruud Gerards & Sanne Wetten & Cecile Sambeek, 2021. "New ways of working and intrapreneurial behaviour: the mediating role of transformational leadership and social interaction," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 15(7), pages 2075-2110, October.
    20. Barrero, Jose Maria & Bloom, Nick & Davis, Steven J., 2020. "Why Working From Home Will Stick," SocArXiv wfdbe, Center for Open Science.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:13:p:6883-:d:583033. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.