Analyzing the association between fine particulate matter (PM2.5) pollution and socio-economic factors has become a major concern in public health. Since traditional analysis methods (such as correlation analysis and geographically weighted regression) cannot provide a full assessment of this relationship, the quantile regression method was applied to overcome such a limitation at different spatial scales in this study. The results indicated that merely 3% of the population and 2% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) occurred under an annually mean value of 35 μg/m³ in mainland China, and the highest population exposure to PM2.5 was located in a lesser-known city named Dazhou in 2014. The analysis results at three spatial scales (grid-level, county-level, and city-level) demonstrated that the grid-level was the optimal spatial scale for analysis of socio-economic effects on exposure due to its tiny uncertainty, and the population exposure to PM2.5 was positively related to GDP. An apparent upward trend of population exposure to PM2.5 emerged at the 80th percentile GDP. For a 10 thousand yuan rise in GDP, population exposure to PM2.5 increases by 1.05 person/km² at the 80th percentile, and 1.88 person/km2 at the 95th percentile, respectively.
Keywords: economic effects; population exposure; quantitative analysis; spatial heterogeneity.