PM2.5 exposure and anxiety in China: evidence from the prefectures

BackgroundAnxiety disorders are among the most common mental health concerns today. While numerous factors are known to affect anxiety disorders, the ways in which environmental factors aggravate or mitigate anxiety are not fully understood.MethodsBaidu is the most widely used search engine in China, and a large amount of data on internet behavior indicates that anxiety is a growing concern. We reviewed the annual Baidu Indices of anxiety-related keywords for cities in China from 2013 to 2018 and constructed anxiety indices. We then employed a two-way fixed effect (FE) model to analyze the relationship between PM2.5 exposure and anxiety at the prefectural level.ResultsThe results indicated that there was a significant positive association between PM2.5 and anxiety index. The anxiety index increased by 0.1565258 for every unit increase in the PM2.5 level (P<0.05), which suggested that current PM2.5 levels in China pose a considerable risk to mental health.ConclusionThe enormous impact of PM2.5 exposure indicates that the macroscopic environment can shape individual mentality and social behavior, and that it can be extremely destructive in terms of societal mindset.