Abstract
Scientific evidence spanning experimental and epidemiologic studies has shown that air pollution exposures can lead to a range of health effects. Quantitative approaches that allow for the estimation of the adverse health impacts attributed to air pollution enable researchers and policy analysts to convey the public health impact of poor air quality. Multiple tools are currently available to conduct such analyses, which includes software packages designed by the World Health Organization (WHO): AirQ+, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA): Environmental Benefits Mapping and Analysis Program – Community Edition (BenMAP – CE), to quantify the number and economic value of air pollution-attributable premature deaths and illnesses. WHO’s AirQ+ and U.S. EPA’s BenMAP – CE are among the most popular tools to quantify these effects as reflected by the hundreds of peer-reviewed publications and technical reports over the past two decades that have employed these tools spanning many countries and multiple continents. Within this paper we conduct an analysis using common input parameters to compare AirQ+ and BenMAP – CE and show that the two software packages well align in the calculation of health impacts. Additionally, we detail the research questions best addressed by each tool.
Highlights
Poor air quality is one of the leading global risk factors that can contribute to premature death and disability adjusted life years (DALYs) [1,2]
AirQ+ and BenMAP—CE estimate the number of avoided premature deaths and illnesses attributed to improving air quality using a simple algebraic equation often referred to as a health impact function (HIF)
The analyses further confirm that the underlying methodology used by each tool is consistent and that each tool can be used with confidence to estimate the public health impacts attributed to air pollution
Summary
Poor air quality is one of the leading global risk factors that can contribute to premature death and disability adjusted life years (DALYs) [1,2]. The assessment of the health impacts of air pollution can be beneficial to conveying the public health impact of poor air quality, and when considering the potential implementation. Assessments of the potential health impacts that could be achieved through improvements in air quality represent an important data point for public health and environmental specialists. To estimate the public health impact of changes in air quality, which includes both the number of premature deaths and illnesses and often their associated economic value, numerous tools of varying complexity have been developed [7]. Of these tools, the World Health Organization’s
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