Environmental research
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Environmental research · Mar 2006
The avoidable health effects of air pollution in three Latin American cities: Santiago, São Paulo, and Mexico City.
Urban centers in Latin American often face high levels of air pollution as a result of economic and industrial growth. Decisions with regard to industry, transportation, and development will affect air pollution and health both in the short term and in the far future through climate change. We investigated the pollution health consequences of modest changes in fossil fuel use for three case study cities in Latin American: Mexico City, Mexico; Santiago, Chile; and São Paulo, Brazil. ⋯ The economic value of the avoided health impacts is roughly 21 to 165 billion Dollars (US). Sensitivity analysis shows that the control policy yields significant health and economic benefits even with relaxed assumptions with regard to population growth, pollutant concentrations for the control policy, concentration-response functions, and economic value of health outcomes. This research demonstrates the health and economic burden from air pollution in Latin American urban centers and the magnitude of health benefits from control policies.