Variations of the atmospheric polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon concentrations, sources, and health risk and the direct medical costs of lung cancer around the Bohai Sea against a background of pollution prevention and control in China

Abstract

The Bohai Sea (BS) region, an area of China that is severely polluted with atmospheric polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), has received wide attention in recent decades. To characterize the variations of the concentrations and sources of PAHs from June 2014 to May 2019, 15 PAH congeners (Σ15PAHs) were measured in atmospheric samples (N = 228) collected at 12 sites around the BS, and the health risk and direct medical costs associated with lung cancer caused by exposure to PAHs were also estimated. The annual daily average concentration of Σ15PAHs was 56.78 ± 4.75 ng m−3, which was dominated by low molecular weight PAHs (LMW-PAHs) containing three rings (58.7 ± 7.8 %). During the 5-year sampling period, the atmospheric Σ15PAHs concentration reduced by 17.5 % for the whole BS region, with an especially large drop of 51.7 % observed in the tightly controlled area of Tianjin (TJ), which was mainly due to a decrease in the concentration of high molecular weight PAHs (HMW-PAHs) containing five or six rings. Generally, the concentration of Σ15PAHs was highest in winter and lowest in summer, which can mainly be attributed to the change in LMW-PAH concentration. Based on the positive matrix factorization (PMF) model, PAHs in the BS region were mainly ascribed to coal combustion and biomass burning. The PAH contributions of coal combustion and motor vehicles showed different trends for the BS region (PAHs from coal combustion rose by 7.2 % and PAHs from motor vehicles fell by 22.4 %) and for TJ (PAHs from coal combustion fell by 12.6 % and PAHs from motor vehicles rose by 6.9 %). The incidence of lung cancer (ILCR) caused by exposure to atmospheric PAHs decreased by 74.1 % and 91.6 % from 2014 to 2018 in the BS region and in TJ, respectively. This was mainly due to the decrease in the concentration of highly toxic HMW-PAHs and was reflected in USD 10.7 million of savings in direct medical costs of lung cancer caused by exposure to PAHs, which represent a decrease of 46.1 % compared to the corresponding costs before air pollution prevention and control was implemented around the BS. There was an even higher reduction in medical costs of 54.5 % in TJ. Hence, this study proves that implementing pollution prevention and control not only effectively reduced the concentration of pollutants and the risks caused by them, but it also significantly reduced the medical costs of diseases caused by the corresponding exposure.