FUTURE BRIEF: What are the health costs of environmental pollution? - Issue 21

Environmental pollution causes death, pain and suffering. From sleepless nights caused by traffic noise to death, quantifying the toll of environmental pollution on

human health has been the subject of much research. How do we estimate the economic impact of these health damages on society? And what should we pay to reduce or avoid the damage?

Our Future Brief explores the health impacts of pollution, with a focus on the effects of air, chemical and noise pollution. Costing health impacts serves a number of purposes in environmental policymaking, from communicating the burden of pollution to informing taxes on polluting activities.

Two infographics accompany the report; the first explains the difference between two key approaches to measuring health impacts - QALYs and DALYs. The second infographic highlights a fundamental question faced by policymakers: what would you spend to save a life?