Abstract: In recent years, a series of environmental policies, including the construction of low-carbon cities, are being gradually implemented, and the role of environmental policies in improving national health quality is increasingly and widely discussed. This paper conducts an empirical study with the data of cities above the prefecture level in China from 2006 to 2016. The findings show that the construction of low-carbon cities has significantly reduced the mortality of urban residents, the death rate of residents in pilot cities can be reduced by about five-ten thousandths on average, in which the improvement of air quality plays a very important role. The findings also show that the pilot policy of low-carbon cities is more effective in megacities, mainly because large cities have more effective innovation abilities and scale economies, and can quickly achieve green transformation and industrial upgrading. This shows that during the construction of low-carbon cities further attention must be paid to environmental health management and environmental health equality, and the goal of environmental quality improvement, steady economic development and national health quality improvement can be achieved through the implementation of stricter, scientific and flexible environmental policies.

Key words: low-carbon city, air quality, healthy human capital, DID model