Evidence item

Here we examined the causal impact of air pollution on the academic publications of individual scholars in China. Using an instrumental variable design and combining air quality data with a bibliographic dataset of publications, we found that an increase of 1 μg m−3 in the annual concentration of PM2.5 (particles smaller than 2.5 μm in diameter) causes a decline of 0.23% (P < 0.01; 95% confidence interval, −0.0028 to −0.0017) in publications. The mean PM2.5 concentration was 45.91 over the study period. A 1% increase in PM2.5 concentration results in a reduction of approximately 1,053 publications nationwide. This effect was more pronounced during years of heavy pollution, especially among highly productive and younger scholars.