Health-Related Benefits of Attaining the 8-Hr Ozone Standard

Abstract

During the 2000–2002 time period, between 36 and 56% of ozone monitors each year in the United States failed to meet the current ozone standard of 80 ppb for the fourth highest maximum 8-hr ozone concentration. We estimated the health benefits of attaining the ozone standard at these monitors using the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Environmental Benefits Mapping and Analysis Program. We used health impact functions based on published epidemiologic studies, and valuation functions derived from the economics literature. The estimated health benefits for 2000 and 2001 are similar in magnitude, whereas the results for 2002 are roughly twice that of each of the prior 2 years. The simple average of health impacts across the 3 years includes reductions of 800 premature deaths, 4,500 hospital and emergency department admissions, 900,000 school absences, and > 1 million minor restricted activity days. The simple average of benefits (including premature mortality) across the 3 years is $5.7 billion [90% confidence interval (CI), 0.6–15.0] for the quadratic rollback simulation method and $4.9 billion (90% CI, 0.5–14.0) for the proportional rollback simulation method. Results are sensitive to the form of the standard and to assumptions about background ozone levels. If the form of the standard is based on the first highest maximum 8-hr concentration, impacts are increased by a factor of 2–3. Increasing the assumed hourly background from zero to 40 ppb reduced impacts by 30 and 60% for the proportional and quadratic attainment simulation methods, respectively.

Six Climate Change–Related Events In The United States Accounted For About $14 Billion In Lost Lives And Health Costs

“…However, two of the studies we relied on included some evaluation of costs. 15,26 Despite some differences in methodology, our average morbidity costs per case were fairly consistent with the results in those studies. However, the differences in total Our analysis illustrates the economic health burden of climaterelated hazards.…”

“…The base case used the then-current ozone standard of eighty parts per billion from Hubbell and colleagues. 15 However, the Environmental Protection Agency has since proposed to reduce the health-based standard to sixty parts per billion. 41 A sensitivity analysis using sixty parts per billion resulted in a mortality rate of 0.0056 per 1,000 people and associated costs of $44,000 per 1,000 people.…”

“…12 Because of the national scale of ozone pollution, we based our analysis on a study by Bryan Hubbell and colleagues. 15 This is the most recent nationwide assessment of the health impact resulting from ozone levels that exceed national standards. It estimated the incidence of premature mortality, hospitalizations for respiratory problems, and asthma-related emergency department visits associated with ozone levels exceeding the eight-hour standard of eighty parts per billion for the years 2000-02.…”

“…This approach is generally considered to yield a conservative estimate of the true cost of disease. 9,15,33 Health costs are reported in 2008 dollars, using the Consumer Price Index 34 to adjust past health costs.…”

Free tropospheric peroxyacetyl nitrate (PAN) and ozone at Mount Bachelor: potential causes of variability and timescale for trend detection

“…Urban concentrations of O 3 have been decreasing, but a significant fraction of the US population (∼40 %) is still exposed to harmful concentrations of this pollutant (Bell et al, 2004;Hubbell et al, 2005). The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) revised the 8-hour O 3 standard downward to 75 ppbv in 2008.…”