Health burden from food systems is highly unequal across income groups

Zheng, Lianming, Adalibieke, Wulahati, Zhou, Feng, He, Pan ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1088-6290, Chen, Yilin, Guo, Peng, He, Jinling, Zhang, Yuanzheng, Xu, Peng, Wang, Chen, Ye, Jianhuai, Zhu, Lei, Shen, Guofeng, Fu, Tzung-May, Yang, Xin, Zhao, Shunliu, Hakami, Amir, Russell, Armistead G., Tao, Shu, Meng, Jing and Shen, Huizhong 2024. Health burden from food systems is highly unequal across income groups. Nature Food 5 , pp. 251-261. 10.1038/s43016-024-00946-7

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Abstract

Food consumption contributes to the degradation of air quality in regions where food is produced, creating a contrast between the health burden caused by a specific population through its food consumption and that faced by this same population as a consequence of food production activities. Here we explore this inequality within China’s food system by linking air-pollution-related health burden from production to consumption, at high levels of spatial and sectorial granularity. We find that low-income groups bear a 70% higher air-pollution-related health burden from food production than from food consumption, while high-income groups benefit from a 29% lower health burden relative to their food consumption. This discrepancy largely stems from a concentration of low-income residents in food production areas, exposed to higher emissions from agriculture. Comprehensive interventions targeting both production and consumption sides can effectively reduce health damages and concurrently mitigate associated inequalities, while singular interventions exhibit limited efficacy.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Earth and Environmental Sciences
Publisher:	Nature Research
ISSN:	2662-1355
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	18 March 2024
Date of Acceptance:	21 February 2024
Last Modified:	08 Nov 2024 03:45
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/167328

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