ABSTRACT

Using the excess risks of mortality, admissions to hospital and general practitioner visits, we have applied an analysis of costs to the burden of air pollution. We have used a variety of costing methods to obtain the values of the various impacts of air pollution. These include cost of illness and willingness to pay methods. We estimate an annual cost of around US$90 million in costs of health care due to air pollution including hospital episodes, GP visits and the associated time lost from work. We also estimate that each individual in the population could be losing around two years of life due to current levels of air pollution. This would have a value of almost US$400 million dollars. Current levels of air pollution extract an unacceptably high cost in our society and all means of reducing it should be taken seriously.