How housing burden damages residents' health: evidence from Chinese cities.

Background: Currently, China is steadily pursuing high-quality development and promoting common prosperity, for which residents' health is a precondition. However, high housing-price-to-income ratios and rent-to-income ratios have already triggered many social problems and have substantially affected people's work and life. It is of practical significance to examine the relationship between housing burden and residents' health. Methods: Combining city-level housing price-to-income ratio data and residents' health data from the China Family Panel Studies, this study employs a binary logit model to investigate the impact and mechanism of housing burden on residents' physical and psychological health. Results: Overall, a 1% increase in the housing-price-to-income ratio leads to a 1.2% decrease in physical health and a 1.9% decrease in psychological health. In terms of different psychological state indicators, a 1% increase in the housing price-to-income ratio leads to a 1.1% increase in depression, 1.1% increase in nervousness, 1.4% increase in relentlessness, 1.4% increase in hopelessness, 1.0% increase in a sense of incapability, and 1.4% increase in meaninglessness. According to mechanistic analyses, a 1% increase in the housing-price-to-income ratio leads to increases of 0.6 and 0.7% in the smoking rate and late sleep rate, respectively, while it leads to a 0.9% decrease in the noon nap rate. Conclusion: A growing housing burden significantly negatively impacts both the physical and psychological health of residents and increases the possibility of negative emotions. Further investigation revealed that the housing burden damages residents' health by increasing their likelihood of smoking and sleeping late and decreasing their likelihood of taking a nap at noon, while exercise alleviates the negative impacts of the housing burden on residents' physical and psychological health. Finally, we also find that housing burdens' impacts on physical and psychological health differ significantly in terms of gender, age, and educational attainment. From the perspective of improving livelihoods, governments should consider the relationship between housing burdens and residents' health when formulating livelihood policies. Location-specific and targeted policies should be followed. Additionally, efforts should be made to promote exercise among citizens.

Comprehensive metrological and content analysis of the income inequality research in health field: A bibliometric analysis.

The association between income inequality in a society and the poor health status of its people has attracted the attention of researchers from multiple disciplines. Based on the ISI Web of Science database, bibliometric methods were used to analyze 546 articles related to income inequality research in health field published between 1997 and 2021. We found that the USA contributed most articles, the Harvard Univ was the most influential institution, Social Science & Medicine was the most influential journal, and Kawachi I was the most influential author; the main hotspots included the income inequality, income, health inequality, mortality, socioeconomic factors, concentration index, social capital, self-rated health, income distribution, infant mortality, and population health in 1997-2021; the cardiovascular disease risk factor, social capital income inequality, individual mortality risk, income-related inequalities, understanding income inequalities, income inequality household income, and state income inequality had been the hot research topics in 1997-2003; the self-assessed health, achieving equity, income-related inequalities, oral health, mental health, European panel, occupational class, and cardiovascular diseases had been the hot research topics in 2004-2011; the adolescent emotional problem, South Africa, avoidable mortality, rising inequalities, results from world health survey, working-age adult, spatial aggregation change, prospective study, and mental health-empirical evidence had been the hot research topics in 2012-2021; there were 11 articles with strong transformation potential during 2012-2021. The research results of this paper are helpful to the scientific understanding of the current status of income inequality research in health field.

The impact of lockdown in Wuhan on residents confidence in controlling COVID-19 outbreak at the destination cities.

Objective: From January 23rd, 2020, lock-down measures were adopted in Wuhan, China to stop the spread of COVID-19. However, due to the approach of the Spring Festival and the nature of COVID-19, more than 6 million permanent and temporary residents of Wuhan (who were potential carriers or spreaders of the virus), left the city before the lock-down measures were implemented. This study aims to explore whether and how the population inflow from Wuhan city impacted residents' confidence in controlling COVID-19 outbreaks at the destination cities. Study design and setting: Based on questionnaire data and migration big data, a multiple regression model was developed to quantify the impact of the population inflow from Wuhan city on the sense of confidence of residents in controlling the COVID-19 outbreak at the destination cities. Scenarios were considered that varied residents' expected month for controlling COVID-19 outbreak at the destination cities, residents' confidence in controlling COVID-19 outbreak at the destination cities, and the overall indicators for the sense of confidence of residents in controlling COVID-19. A marginal effect analysis was also conducted to calculate the probability of change in residents' confidence in controlling the COVID-19 outbreak with per unit change in the population inflow from Wuhan city. Results: The impact of population inflow from Wuhan city on residents' expected month for controlling COVID-19 outbreak at the destination cities was positive and significant at the 1% level, while that on residents' confidence in controlling COVID-19 at the destination cities was negative and significant at the 1% level. Robustness checks, which included modifying the sample range and replacing measurement indicators of the population inflow from Wuhan city, demonstrated these findings were robust and credible. When the population inflow from Wuhan city increased by one additional unit, the probabilities of the variables "February" and "March" decreased significantly by 0.1023 and 0.1602, respectively, while the probabilities of "April," "May," "June," "July," "before the end of 2020," and "unknown" significantly increased by 0.0470, 0.0856, 0.0333, 0.0080, 0.0046, and 0.0840, respectively. Similarly, when the population inflow from Wuhan city increased by one additional unit, the probability of the variable "extremely confident" decreased by 0.1973. Furthermore, the probabilities of the variables "confident," "neutral," and "unconfident" significantly increased by 0.1392, 0.0224, and 0.0320, respectively. Conclusion: The population inflow from Wuhan city played a negative role in the sense of confidence of residents in controlling COVID-19 in the destination cities. The higher the population inflow from Wuhan city, the longer the residents' expected month for controlling COVID-19 outbreak at the destination cities became, and the weaker the residents' confidence in controlling the COVID-19 outbreak at the destination cities.

Trends, Issues and Future Directions of Urban Health Impact Assessment Research: A Systematic Review and Bibliometric Analysis.

Health impact assessment (HIA) has been regarded as an important means and tool for urban planning to promote public health and further promote the integration of health concept. This paper aimed to help scientifically to understand the current situation of urban HIA research, analyze its discipline co-occurrence, publication characteristics, partnership, influence, keyword co-occurrence, co-citation, and structural variation. Based on the ISI Web database, this paper used a bibliometric method to analyze 2215 articles related to urban HIA published from 2012 to 2021. We found that the main research directions in the field were Environmental Sciences and Public Environmental Occupational Health; China contributed most articles, the Tehran University of Medical Sciences was the most influential institution, Science of the Total Environment was the most influential journal, Yousefi M was the most influential author. The main hotspots include health risk assessment, source appointment, contamination, exposure, particulate matter, heavy metals and urban soils in 2012-2021; road dust, source apposition, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, air pollution, urban topsoil and the north China plain were always hot research topics in 2012-2021, drinking water and water quality became research topics of great concern in 2017-2021. There were 25 articles with strong transformation potential during 2020-2021, but most papers carried out research on the health risk assessment of toxic elements in soil and dust. Finally, we also discussed the limitations of this paper and the direction of bibliometric analysis of urban HIA in the future.

Citizen participation and urban air pollution abatement: Evidence from environmental whistle-blowing platform policy in Sichuan China.

This study employs the environmental whistle-blowing platform policy adopted at Leshan City, Sichuan Province, China in July 2017 as the quasi-natural experiment and applies Synthetic Control Method (SCM) and Difference-in-Difference (DID) to examine the causal effect between citizen participation, median supervision, and air pollution abatement by government. The results show: first, the launch of the environmental whistle-blowing platform decreases daily AQI at Leshan City by 19 units; second, days with excellent air quality increase by 2.6 days each month on average at Leshan City; third, the probability for a day with excellent or good air quality at Leshan City increases by approximately 16.6%. Moreover, when the sample is expanded from neighboring prefecture level cities of Leshan City to prefecture level cities in Sichuan Province or across China, the results remain robust. Based on the panel data from China Family Panel Studies (CFPS), we find the launch of the environmental whistle-blowing platform improves individual's approval of government at primary level significantly and increases their life satisfaction. This demonstrates citizen participation and media supervision generate substantial effects on air pollution abatement. This study serves as a reference for solutions to improvement of air quality and governance capability of the government.

Land Use Evolution and Land Ecological Security Evaluation Based on AHP-FCE Model: Evidence from China.

China experienced rapid urbanization and socioeconomic development at an unusual rate during the past four decades. Against such background, land use evolution and land ecological security have both been affected in a volatile way. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate the land use and the land ecological security in China. However, the traditional assessment approaches have paid more attention to the environmental and economic factors than the sustainable development of ecology, which cannot comprehensively assess the land ecological security. From the perspective of ecological sustainable development, this study identifies 3 main factors and 17 sub-factors. We also construct a model to integrate the FCE approach with the AHP. The results show that from 2004 to 2017, China's land use structure was unbalanced. The construction land, mining land, and cultivated land increased rapidly, leading to the shrinkage of ecological land. Moreover, the weight of the sustainable development of resources and the environment, economic sustainable development, social sustainable development are 0.3341, 0.3780, and 0.2879, respectively, demonstrating that economic sustainable development is the most important factor affecting land ecological security. Finally, although the value of comprehensive land ecological security in China has been on the rise from 2004 to 2017, it remains at an unsecured level. Moreover, the value of the sustainable development of resources and the environment has been declining since 2011 and is lower than the values of economic sustainable development and social sustainable development. This study demonstrates that more attention should be paid to enhancing land ecological security, especially promoting the sustainable development of resources and the environment.

What determines city's resilience against epidemic outbreak: evidence from China's COVID-19 experience.

By employing the city-level data from China during the spring of 2020, this study investigates the relationship between city-level resilience against the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemics and its affecting factors, including the inflow risk pressure of COVID-19 virus (population inflow from the epicenter), city agglomeration characteristics (urban population density and city size), healthcare resource adequacy, among others. The results reveal that, while managing COVID-19 inflow risk pressure plays a critical role in the city's pandemic disaster resilience, city agglomeration characteristics also matters. To be exact, we find that large and high-density cities with high inter and intra-city mobility flows have more difficulties in containing the epidemic spread, but improving healthcare infrastructure adequacy and urban governance capacity can increase time efficacy of pandemic control and then improve the city's resilience against pandemic. Although our analysis is based on the performance of Chinese cities in the case of COVID-19, the research framework can be applied in understanding COVID-19 control performance of cities in other countries and the findings can be useful for improving health-related urban resilience and sustainability.

Environmental regulation benefits for whom? Heterogeneous effects of the intensity of the environmental regulation on employment in China.

As environmental pollution in China has deteriorated in the recent years, intensifying environmental regulation has become a necessity for the Chinese government. But the debate persists among the academic circles and the government over whether a double dividend, reducing pollution emission and boosting employment, of environmental regulations exists. This study differentiates, based on Cobb-Douglas production function, the variance between high- and low-skilled labour and constructs theoretical models to analyse heterogeneous effects of environmental regulation intensity on the employment of labour with varied skills. The model finds that implementing environmental regulation will generate 'compliance cost effect' and 'innovation offset effect'. The compliance cost effect will promote the employment of high-skilled labour while suppressing that of the low-skilled labour. The innovation offset effect, however, will facilitate the employment for both high-skilled and low-skilled labour. Therefore, the employment of high-skilled labour will grow along with the intensification of environmental regulation while that of the low-skilled labour will decline first and then rebound, showcasing a U-shaped curve. The empirical research results based on the provincial dynamic panel data from 2004 to 2018 in China confirm the theoretical analysis. Moreover, we find spatial spillover effects of environmental regulation on employment, with high-skilled labour being more sensitive to changes in environmental regulation. One percentage point increase in environmental regulation in neighbouring regions will cause 0.072% employment decline in high-skilled labour while that of low-skilled labour will only decrease 0.033%. The conclusions of this study verify that dividend in employment growth for both high-skilled and low-skilled labour can be realised along with intensification of environmental regulation, which carries significant guiding implications for policy-making for environmental regulation in China.

Direct and moderating effects of environmental regulation intensity on enterprise technological innovation: The case of China.

There is few significant attempt to integrate environmental regulation, government financial support, and corporate technological innovation in a methodological framework. Employing the data of the industrial enterprises with an annual turnover of over 20 million yuan from 30 Chinese provinces or municipalities between 2008 and 2016, this paper applies the fixed effect regression model to reveal the relationships between environmental regulation, government financial support, and corporate technological innovation simultaneously. Results show that: (1) there exists a U-shaped relation between environmental regulation intensity and technological innovation of enterprises which declines first and then climbs up, and China is still at the stage of inhibition before the "inflection point". (2) government financial support does not significantly work on technological innovation directly, but environmental regulation drives this effect to be achieved; when the value of lnER is higher than 3.69, government financial support can significantly facilitate corporate technological innovation. (3) the comparison between regional samples reveals that heterogeneity exists in the influence of environmental regulation intensity and government financial support on corporate technological innovation. The threshold value of enabling effects of environmental regulation in eastern region is higher than that of the central and western region. These results remain consistent after we experiment several robustness checks. Theory and policy implications of our work are discussed.