Well-being and environmental quality: Does pollution affect life satisfaction?

Purpose: We aimed to explore the effect of ambient air pollution on individual persons' levels of subjective well-being. Our research question was: to what extent is an individual's life satisfaction shaped by exposure to PM10?

Methods: We used regression models to analyse data on subjective well-being indicators from the last two waves of the European social survey (ESS) and detailed information on local levels of the air pollutant PM10.

Results: An increase in PM10 annual concentrations by 1 μg/m(3) was associated with a significant reduction in life satisfaction of .017 points on the ESS 10-point life satisfaction scale.

Conclusions: Our findings suggest that even in cases of relatively low levels of PM10 air pollution (mean annual concentration of 8.3 ± 3.9 μg/m(3)), in addition to the effects on physical health, exposure negatively affects subjective assessments of well-being.