Impact of air pollution on human health and its associated cost
Student name: Ms Garima Dhar and Ms Sheela Choudhary
Guide: Dr Suresh Jain
Year of completion: 2014
Host Organisation: TERI University
Abstract: Epidemiological studies throughout the world have confirmed a relationship between air pollution
and mortality. According to WHO, 7 million people were killed in 2012 due to air pollution. Present
report aims to assess the human health risks of air pollution in the Capital City of Delhi and
simultaneously calculate the economic costs people are willing to pay in order to reduce the health
damage. A questionnaire survey in Delhi was done in order to get the morbidity data, pollution data
(PM10 and NO2) and population data were taken from CPCB and Economic survey of Delhi. Out of
the seven stations which were considered for relative risk calculation, the highest mortality was
reported in Ashok Vihar and the least was reported for ITO. The prime contributor of pollution was
particulate matter with not much effect of nitrogen dioxide. The willingness to pay was estimated to
be around Rs. 591.53/month. This paper also reviews various epidemiological studies showing the
use of concentration response function for substantiating the connection between air pollution and
human health.
Keywords:
Air pollution, Concentration response function, Epidemiological study, Willingness
to pay, Particulate matter
