Quantitative health impact and burden of disease assessment of traffic-related air pollution

Health impact assessment (HIA) is an important tool to integrate health evidence into the policy decision-making process and protect public health in all policies. Quantitative HIA informs numerically on the associated health benefits and risks of interventions, policies, or programs outside the health sphere, and the distribution thereof among the population. Quantitative HIA approaches commonly follow the comparative risk assessment framework where the baseline health status of a population is compared with the anticipated change in health status under a counterfactual scenario associated with the intervention, policy, or program. In the last two decades, quantitative HIA studies of transport projects and traffic-related air pollution have seen a large increase. However, these studies have generally been limited to research and academic purposes. More user-friendly tools and models are needed that allow planners, practitioners, and decision-makers to routinely integrate quantitative HIA methodologies in their transport appraisal schemes. Also, there is a need for more stakeholder involvement and full-chain HIA modeling approaches, integrating the different fields of research and practice from the exposure source to the health outcome