Deaths Attributable to Air Pollution in Nordic Countries: Disparities in the Estimates

• Published in: Atmosphere
• Main Authors: Heli Lehtomäki, Camilla Geels, Jørgen Brandt, Shilpa Rao, Katarina Yaramenka, Stefan Åström, Mikael Skou Andersen, Lise M. Frohn, Ulas Im, Otto Hänninen
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020
• Subjects: health risk assessment; particulate matter; fine particles; ozone; mortality; burden of disease; Meteorology. Climatology; QC851-999; Iceland
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos11050467; https://doaj.org/article/5c23d89fb1654ef6a96c0a789830d343

Particulate matter air pollution is widely considered as the leading environmental cause of premature mortality. However, there are substantial differences in the estimated health burden between the assessments. The aim of this work is to quantify the deaths attributable to ambient air pollution in Nordic countries applying selected assessment tools and approaches, and to identify the main disparities. We quantified and compared the estimated deaths from three health risk assessment tools and from a set of different concentration-response functions. A separate analysis was conducted for the impacts of spatial resolution of the exposure model on the estimated deaths. We found that the death rate (deaths per million) attributable to PM 2.5 and O 3 were the highest in Denmark and the lowest in Iceland. In the five Nordic countries, the results between the three tools ranged from 8500 to 11,400 for PM 2.5 related deaths, and for ozone from 230 to 260 deaths in 2015. Substantially larger differences were found between five concentration-response functions. The shape of concentration-response functions, and applied theoretical thresholds led to substantial differences in the estimated deaths. Nordic countries are especially sensitive to theoretical thresholds due to low exposures. Sensitivity analysis demonstrated that when using spatial exposure assessment methods, high spatial resolution is necessary to avoid underestimation of exposures and health effects.