Developing methods for Health Impact Assessment (HIA) of Outdoor Air Pollution
Early work on HIA of outdoor air pollution
IOM's involvement in developing methods for Environmental Health Impact Assessment began with the ExternE project, and estimating the public health effects of air pollution from electricity generation and transport (see Developing Methods for Environmental HIA ).
This work was developed further with funding from the Department of Health (DH) in London, and various other EU projects, including AIRNET, whose HIA report includes an accessible summary of developments at that time. Work for DH contributed greatly to the UK expert group COMEAP's statements about the mortality effects of long-term exposure to air pollution, and the related work of the UK Inter-Departmental Group on Cost-Benefit Analysis, led by DEFRA, developing UK policy on control of outdoor air pollution.
The high point to date of the policy uses of these methods came 2005/6 with the Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) of the European Commission's flagship policy on control of outdoor air pollution across Europe, the Clean Air for Europe (CAFE) Programme. The overall CBA team was led by AEA Technology; within this, IOM led on developing HIA methods for quantifying the public health effects of outdoor air pollution EU-wide. A detailed report on HIA methods as used in CAFE is available from www.cafe-cba.org or here.
Using life tables to estimate mortality impacts: IOMLIFET
One specific development, which has had a major influence on HIA methodology for outdoor air pollution internationally, was the implementation of life table methods for estimating how the mortality risks of long-term exposure to outdoor air pollution, especially PM2.5, translated into impacts on population survival and mortality. This work, led by Brian Miller, first as part of ExternE, later funded by the Department of Health in London, has led to new insights about the relationships between air pollution, life expectancy, deaths and years of life lived and lost. The methods have become widely accepted internationally; they are used, among others, by WHO in its AIRQ program. They are described more fully in the linked page on the IOMLIFET Excel spreadsheets.
Current development of methods for HIA of outdoor air pollution
The HIA methods used for CAFE are being developed further within the HEIMTSA project, led by IOM. On issues of outdoor air pollution, HEIMTSA is working closely with the APHEKOM project, and IOM has had new opportunities to link science with policy development as part of a small study for the European Commission, using HIA methods for outdoor air pollution in a project in support of the EU's National Emissions Ceiling Directive (NECD).
IOM is currently active in developing methods in three further EU studies involving HIA of outdoor air pollution.
We have a small HIA role as part of ESCAPE a coalition of European cohort studies looking at relationships between longer-term exposure to air pollution and mortality, cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease and reproductive outcomes.
IOM leads on HIA methods within TRANSPHORM , a project on traffic-related air pollution and health, closely linked with ESCAPE. And IOM's HIA work on outdoor air pollution will be further developed, with WHO and other partners, within URGENCHE, currently under negotiation.
Meanwhile, our work on developing life table methods for assessing the mortality impacts of outdoor air pollution continues to benefit from funding from the Department of Health in London.