ArticleJournal of environmental economics and management2017
Happiness in the Air: How Does a Dirty Sky Affect Mental Health and Subjective Well-being?
Article in Journal of environmental economics and management, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 106 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
106 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 649 citations in OpenAlex.
- Air pollution, depressive and anxiety disorders, and brain effects: A systematic review.Neurotoxicology · 2022Pooled it
- Development and validation of a nomogram for predicting the risk of mental health problems of factory workers and miners.BMJ open · 2022Trial
- How does digital financial inclusion affect the health of older adults? Evidence from China.SSM - population health · 2026Article
- The Effects of Haze Pollution on County-level Entrepreneurship Activity in China.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Impacts of air pollution on farmers' subjective satisfaction in China's ore and agricultural zone.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Modeling the relationship between residents' happiness and human settlement quality: An IGSA-MLPNN-GARSON approach.PloS one · 2026Article
- Article
- Blowin' in the Wind: Smog and Suicidal Ideation among School-Age Children.China economic review · 2025Article
- Enhancing the well-being of the elderly: evidence from China on the role of health investment.Health policy and planning · 2025Article
- High-accuracy PMScientific reports · 2025Article
- Renewable energy reduces domestic depression but increases depression for neighboring countries: evidence of spatial effects from 181 countries worldwide.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Evaluating socio-economic and subjective well-being impacts of coal power phaseout in China.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Environmental regulation, coal de-capacity, and PM2.5 in China.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Anxiety in breathing: the impact of air pollution on the mental health of adolescents.Frontiers in public health · 2025Article
- More than a feeling: A global economic valuation of subjective wellbeing damages resulting from rising temperatures.PloS one · 2025Article
- The impact of regional environmental governance efficiency on residents' life satisfaction-an empirical analysis of panel data from 21 cities in Guangdong Province, China (2001-2023).Frontiers in public health · 2025Article
- How weather conditions affect well-being: an explanation from the perspective of environmental psychology.Frontiers in public health · 2025Review
- Does the targeted poverty alleviation program improve the subjective well-being of poor households? Empirical evidence from China.Frontiers in public health · 2025Article
- Air pollution, health status and public awareness of environmental problems in China.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- A review of the literature on wellbeing and modifiable dementia risk factors.Ageing research reviews · 2024Review
46 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Previous studies evaluating the welfare cost of air pollution have not paid much attention to its potential effect on mental health and subjective well-being (SWB). This paper attempts to fill the gap by investigating the impact of air pollution on several key dimensions, including mental health status, depressive symptoms, moment-to-moment happiness, and evaluative happiness. We match a nationwide longitudinal survey in China with local air quality and rich weather conditions according to the exact time and place of survey. By making use of variations in exposure to air pollution for the same individuals over time, we show that air pollution reduces hedonic happiness and increases the rate of depressive symptoms, while life satisfaction has little to do with the immediate air quality. Our results shed light on air pollution as an important contributor to the Easterlin paradox that economic growth may not bring more happiness.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.