The impact of ozone pollution on hospitalizations
Year: 2026
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: This paper estimates the impacts of ozone pollution on hospitalizations, medical expenditure, and in-hospital mortality using inpatient admission records from 1,087 hospitals in China between 2017 and 2021. Leveraging an instrumental variable based on ozone concentrations in nearby upwind cities, we find that ozone significantly increases all-cause hospitalizations and medical expenditure. Ozone elevates hospital admissions across a broader range of diseases than previously documented, and the hospitalization cost of 1-standard deviation increase in ozone is larger than that of PM2.5. Ozone reduces the average number of doctors per inpatient and increases the all-cause in-hospital mortality rate in emergency departments, suggesting that ozone-induced surges in healthcare demand generate hospital crowding, which lowers the quality of care and worsens patient outcomes.
DOI: 10.1086/744909
Authors: Meng Liu, Yun Qiu, Gordon G. Liu, Nan Xiao
Institutions: Peking University, Jinan University, University of Jinan
Language: English
Subfield: Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7134933905