The Cost of Air Pollution: Health Impacts of Road Transport

Description:

Outdoor air pollution kills more than 3 million people across the world every year, and causes health problems from asthma to heart disease for many more. This is costing societies very large amounts in terms of the value of lives lost and ill health.

Based on extensive new epidemiological evidence since the 2010 Global Burden of Disease study, and OECD estimates of the Value of Statistical Life, this report provides evidence on the health impacts from air pollution and the related economic costs.

Table of contents:

List of abbreviations 9
Executive summary 11

Chapter 1. Defining the economic cost of health impacts 15
-1.1. Mortality: The value of statistical life 17
-1.2. Morbidity: In search of a standard method 19
-1.3. The dominance of mortality costs over morbidity costs 23
-References 27

Chapter 2. Reviewing the evidence on and calculating the cost of the health impacts of air pollution 29
-2.1. Improved reporting versus real changes in impacts and costs 30
-2.2. Air pollution from road transport 37
-2.3. Health impacts of air pollution 42
-2.4. Economic cost of the health impacts of air pollution 53
-2.5. Road transport’s share of the above economic cost 62
-References 67

Chapter 3. Rethinking appraisals to mitigate the health impacts of air pollution from road transport 73
-References 78

Website: OECD iLibrary http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/

---