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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Health Economics
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1562342
The impact of Environmental Pollution on China's Economic Growth from the Perspective of Health Damage
Provisionally accepted- Xinyang Normal University, Xinyang, China
Maintaining an optimal economic growth rate is essential and a prerequisite for achieving high-quality development. Among the multitude of factors influencing economic growth, the impact of environmental pollution and health-related issues has garnered increasing attention. This article constructs a five-sector endogenous growth model that takes into account the impact of environmental pollution on health and comprehensively examines the theoretical mechanisms through which both environmental pollution and health affect economic growth. Based on a comprehensive measurement of environmental quality and health levels in Chinese cities, the impact of environmental pollution and health on the level of economic growth is empirically analyzed using panel data from 285 Chinese cities covering the period from 2002 to 2022. The findings suggest that environmental quality and health are significant determinants of economic growth. Environmental pollution not only hinders economic growth directly but also inhibits it indirectly by impairing health levels. Hence, it is crucial to strengthen environmental pollution control measures, enhance public health standards, minimize the detrimental effects of environmental pollution on public health, and thereby mitigate the risk of environmental and health degradation impeding China's highquality economic development.
Keywords: Environmental Pollution, Health damage, Simultaneous equations model, economic growth, endogenous growth model
Received: 17 Jan 2025; Accepted: 31 Mar 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Li, Yang and Chen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Hao Li, Xinyang Normal University, Xinyang, China
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