Antagonism between ambient ozone increase and urbanization-oriented population migration on Chinese cardiopulmonary mortality

Ever-increasing ambient ozone (O3) pollution in China has been exacerbating cardiopulmonary premature deaths. However, the urban-rural exposure inequity has seldom been explored. Here, we assess population-scale O3 exposure and mortality burdens between 1990 and 2019 based on integrated pollution tracking and epidemiological evidence. We find Chinese population have been suffering from climbing O3 exposure by 4.3 ± 2.8 ppb per decade as a result of rapid urbanization and growing prosperity of socioeconomic activities. Rural residents are broadly exposed to 9.8 ± 4.1 ppb higher ambient O3 than the adjacent urban citizens, and thus urbanization-oriented migration compromises the exposure-associated mortality on total population. Cardiopulmonary excess premature deaths attributable to long-term O3 exposure, 373,500 (95% uncertainty interval [UI]: 240,600–510,900) in 2019, is underestimated in previous studies due to ignorance of cardiovascular causes. Future O3 pollution policy should focus more on rural population who are facing an aggravating threat of mortality risks to ameliorate environmental health injustice.