doi:10.1155/2012/935825 Research Article A Method to Assess the Potential Effects of Air Pollution Mitigation on Healthcare Costs

Copyright © 2012 Bjørn Sætterstrøm et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Objective. The aim of this study was to develop amethod to assess the potential effects of air pollutionmitigation on healthcare costs and to apply this method to assess the potential savings related to a reduction in fine particle matter in Denmark. Methods. The effects of air pollution on health were used to identify “exposed ” individuals (i.e., cases). Coronary heart disease, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and lung cancer were considered to be associated with air pollution. We used propensity score matching, two-part estimation, and Lin’s method to estimate healthcare costs. Subsequently, we multiplied the number of saved cases due to mitigation with the healthcare costs to arrive to an expression for healthcare cost savings. Results. The potential cost saving in the healthcare system arising from a modelled reduction in air pollution was estimated at C0.1–2.6 million per 100,000 inhabitants for the four diseases. Conclusion. We have illustrated an application of a method to assess the potential changes i