Air pollution and health of working-age population: Evidence from thermal inversion

Despite the significant impact of air pollution on public health, its causal effects on a national scale have not been extensively studied. In this paper, we examine the impact of PM2.5 on adult health in the United States using data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System for 2001-2012, focusing on a period of relatively low pollution levels. To address the endogeneity issue, we use the two-stage least squares regression with thermal inversion as an instrumental variable. Our findings provide evidence of the ongoing negative impact of air pollution on overall health. In particular, we find that a 1 µg/m³ increase in PM2.5 leads to an increase of 0.11 mentally unwell days and a 0.16-percentage-point rise in asthma incidence.