Reschedule Your Travel Plans: Human Health and Air Pollution

Abstract

Air pollution is one of the biggest challenges for human health, and this is especially true for PM_2.5 pollution in developing countries like China. Much of the PM_2.5 research has been conducted in urban areas, but most tourist attractions are outdoors and outside cities and have been left out of related studies, leaving tourists unaware of the deadly air. To fill this gap, we investigated monthly PM_2.5 concentrations in all of China’s outdoor tourist attractions. Our results indicated that summer is the healthiest time to travel in the Northeast, South, Southwest, and Northwest of China. Without air pollution management, our results also indicated that more than one third of the outdoor attractions would become unhealthy throughout the year. Thus, our work provides medical information to suggest that all tourists schedule China travel during periods of healthy air quality and also calls for instant air pollution management in China and beyond.