Study on Long-Term Exposure to Carbon Emissions and Lung Cancer Incidence Rate in China

Abstract Background: This study has shown the incidence of lung cancer in association with exposure to air pollution. We investigated the relationship, focusing on long-term exposure to carbon emissions (CE) and lung cancer incidence rate (LIR) in China.Methods: We collected the incidence rate of lung cancer from 2013 to 2015, and the data of carbon emissions from 1997 to 2015. We modeled the panel data of 30 provinces and cities in China from 2013 to 2015 and applied a spatial Durbin model (SDM) to explore the spatial effect of CE on the LIR. Pearson test to determine the long-term impact of CE on LIR.Findings: The results showed that the direct effect coefficient of CE and UR were 0.132 and 0.425, respectively, both significant at a 1% level, which showed that CE and UR had an obvious positive effect on LIR. The value of Moran’s I indicated that there was a positive spatial correlation between the LIR and CE in China from 2013 to 2015, while the indirect effect coefficient of all the variables was nonsignificant at a 10% level, which indicated that CE had not impact on the LIR of its surrounding areas. on the whole, the effect cofficient of CE is 0.005 ,which is significant at a 1% level, which points out that the average effect of a change in CE in a certain region on LIR in all regions. Therefore, the research results indicated that there were geographical differences in carbon emissions but there is no spatial spillover effects. In the time fixed effects, the coefficients of CE were positive at the 10% significance level, which pointed out that CE exposure had a long-term impact on LIR from 2013 to 2015. Besides, the Pearson test implied that CE in the period had the greatest impact on the LIR in 2015 in China, and the lag period was about 17 years.Interpretation: The impact of CE on LIR had geographical distribution differences and long-term effects in China. We recommend that adopting policies to reduce carbon emission will have a positive health impact.