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Externalities of air pollution: Estimates for heart diseases

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Abstract

This study attempts to establish a quantitative relationship between air pollution and heart diseases. It proposes that in addition to air pollution, population density, sunshine, racial composition, age composition, and income are important variables to explain the variations in the death rates due to heart diseases in the urban areas of the United States. The analysis suggests that a fifty percent decrease in the air pollution would imply a decrease in the mortality rate by about 24–35 percent. Such a reduction in the air pollution level would be accompanied by a social savings of the order of $2140 to $3130 million per year in terms of the heart diseases only. Social savings in terms of all diseases would obviously be of a much higher order.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ohio University, 45701, Athens, Ohio, USA

    Rajindar K. Koshal & Manjulika Koshal

Authors
  1. Rajindar K. Koshal
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  2. Manjulika Koshal
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Additional information

Ohio University. The authors are grateful to Dr. J. W. Doering, M.D., for clarifying some of the medical terms. The authors are indebted to Professor Lowell E. Gallaway and Professor Vishwa Shukla for their valuable comments and suggestions on an earlier draft of this paper. The authors are also thankful to Walters Stewart and Thomas Baines, graduate research assistants and Mr. Robert Bobic, work study student, for their help in processing the data. All calculations were made at the Ohio University Computer Center.

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Koshal, R.K., Koshal, M. Externalities of air pollution: Estimates for heart diseases. Social Indicators Research 8, 65–79 (1980). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00364602

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00364602

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