Air pollution poses a major threat to human health. Far from unidimensional, air pollution is multifaceted, but quasi-experimental studies have been struggling to grasp the consequences of the multiple hazards. By selecting optimal instruments from a novel and large set of altitude–weather instrumental variables, we disentangle the impact of five air pollutants in a comprehensive assessment of their short-term health impact in the largest urban areas of France over 2010–2015. We find that higher levels of at least two air pollutants, ozone and sulfur dioxide, lead to more respiratory-related emergency admissions. Children and elderly are mostly affected. Carbon monoxide increases emergency admissions for cardiovascular diseases while particulate matter is found responsible for increasing the cardiovascular-related mortality rate, and sulfur dioxide the respiratory-related mortality rate. Assuming a five air pollutants context, we show that an analyst who ignored the presence of interrelations between air pollutants would have reached partially false conclusions.

空气污染对人类健康构成重大威胁。空气污染远非一维，而是多方面的，但准实验研究一直在努力掌握多种危害的后果。通过从一组新颖的大型海拔-天气仪器变量中选择最佳仪器，我们在综合评估 2010 年至 2015 年法国最大城市地区的短期健康影响时，分析了五种空气污染物的影响。我们发现，至少两种空气污染物臭氧和二氧化硫水平较高，会导致更多与呼吸相关的紧急入院。儿童和老人受到的影响最大。一氧化碳增加心血管疾病的紧急入院率，而颗粒物被发现是增加心血管相关死亡率的原因，二氧化硫与呼吸相关的死亡率。假设有五种空气污染物的背景，我们表明忽略空气污染物之间存在相互关系的分析师会得出部分错误的结论。