Abstract
Designing air quality policies that improve public health can benefit
from information about air pollution health risks and impacts, which
include respiratory and cardiovascular diseases and premature death.
Several computer-based tools help automate air pollution health impact
assessments and are being used for a variety of contexts. Expanding
information gathered for a May 2014 World Health Organization expert
meeting, we survey 12 multinational air pollution health impact
assessment tools, categorize them according to key technical and
operational characteristics, and identify limitations and challenges.
Key characteristics include spatial resolution, pollutants and health
effect outcomes evaluated, and method for characterizing population
exposure, as well as tool format, accessibility, complexity, and degree
of peer review and application in policy contexts. While many of the
tools use common data sources for concentration-response associations,
population, and baseline mortality rates, they vary in the exposure
information source, format, and degree of technical complexity. We find
that there is an important tradeoff between technical refinement and
accessibility for a broad range of applications. Analysts should apply
tools that provide the appropriate geographic scope, resolution, and
maximum degree of technical rigor for the intended assessment, within
resources constraints. Asystematic intercomparison of the tools' inputs,
assumptions, calculations, and results would be helpful to determine the
appropriateness of each for different types of assessment. Future work
would benefit from accounting for multiple uncertainty sources and
integrating ambient air pollution health impact assessment tools with
those addressing other related health risks (e.g., smoking, indoor
pollution, climate change, vehicle accidents, physical activity).
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