Executive Summary

The UK National Air Quality Strategy (NAQS, DoE, 1997) sets objectives for reductions in the concentrations of eight major pollutants to be achieved by the year 2005. The Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR)-led Interdepartmental Group on Costs and Benefits (IGCB) was charged with the responsibility for carrying out an economic analysis of the additional measures that would be required to achieve the objectives and has prepared an interim report (DETR, 1999). The purpose of the interim report, which forms part of the wider review of the NAQS, was to explain how the IGCB have conducted the economic analysis of the NAQS objectives and to present preliminary results.

Air pollution damages health and one of the major purposes of the NAQS is to ensure a high degree of protection against risks to public health from air pollution. An assessment of the health benefits that are likely to result from the reductions in air pollutant concentrations as a result of the implementation of existing policies is therefore an important component of an economic analysis of the NAQS. In some instances it has also been possible to assess the health benefits that could be expected to result from additional measures on top of those that are expected to result from current policies.

The health benefit calculations that are presented in the IGCB report (DETR, 1999) were undertaken at the AEA Technology National Environmental Technology Centre (NETCEN) and this report provides additional details of the methods and assumptions underlying these calculations.

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