Integrated environmental health impact assessment for Europe : methods and results of the HEIMTSA/INTARESE Common Case Study

Abstract

Within the EU FP6 projects HEIMTSA and INTARESE a framework for carrying out integrated environmental health impact assessments has been developed. In this paper, the framework is tested and applied.The following question is analysed: how do EU climate mitigation and adaptation policies and measures affect environmental health impacts in Europe? While answering this question, a number of important parameter values and functions, especially dose-response functions, concentration-response functions and exposure-impact functions as well as monetary values for health endpoints are provided, which may be used in further studies. Results show that the impact of most climate change mitigation policies on environmental human health is nearly as important as the climate change effects themselves. Quite some climate protection policies have important positive effects, i.e. they reduce health effects considerably (e.g. the use of wind or solar energy replacing oil and coal). However some policies, especially biomass burning and reducing air exchange rates in houses, cause quite high additional health impacts. The analysis also allows a ranking of stressors in environmental media with regard to overall health impacts in the EU: The highest overall damage stems from primary and secondary fine particles, followed by noise and radon. Less damage is caused by ozone, then mould followed by dioxins and heat waves. Pesticides and especially PCBs cause relatively low health impacts if only cancer endpoints are considered. This hierarchy does not change if different indicators like DALYs or monetary values are applied. Sensitivity analyses furthermore show that the pattern of importance does not change, either, if different toxicity of PM components is assumed. This information is useful to identify priorities when planning health protection policies.A general conclusion is that taking relevant ‘environmental health effects’ into account will change policy recommendations in many fields substantially.