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Abstract

Background and Objectives

In response to the impact of climate change, China initiated the Low Carbon City Pilot (LCCP) program in 2010. Despite the program's positive environmental outcomes, its influence on health among older adults—an age group highly vulnerable to air pollution—remains understudied. This study aims to investigate the effect of the LCCP program on cognitive health among older Chinese and explore the intermediate pathways involved.

Research Design and Methods

Utilizing data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS), this research employs a staggered difference-in-differences (DID) estimator to examine the effects of the LCCP program on cognitive health of older Chinese.

Results

The findings indicate that the LCCP program has been associated with relative improvements in cognitive function of older adults in China, and that this observed positive association has increased over time. Mechanism analysis identifies the enhanced outdoor and indoor air quality, the expansion of green spaces in the city, and increased individual outdoor activity as possible channels through which the LCCP program has exerted its beneficial effects.

Discussion and Implications

The positive association of the LCCP program with cognitive function in Chinese older adults highlights the interconnected nature of environmental and health outcomes. As cities worldwide grapple with the challenges of an aging population and climate change, the insights from this study offer practice implications for designing and refining low carbon city initiatives.

Cognitive Function, Low-Carbon Policy, Chinese Older Adults
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© The Author(s) 2025. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Gerontological Society of America.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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    • Supplementary data

    gnaf131_suppl_Supplementary_Material - docx file