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When particulate matter strikes cities: Social disparities and health costs of air pollution

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  • Giaccherini, Matilde
  • Kopinska, Joanna
  • Palma, Alessandro

Abstract

We investigate the heterogeneous effects of particle pollution on Italian daily hospitalizations and their costs by exploiting public transportation strikes as plausibly-exogenous shocks in pollution exposure. We find that a one standard deviation increase in PM10 causes additional 0.79 hospitalizations per 100,000 residents, and the effect is stronger for the elderly, low educated individuals and migrants. Furthermore, we find that young individuals, an arguably healthy age group, exhibit economically meaningful responses to air pollution with an effect ranging between 0.45 and 1.04. Our results imply a large role of avoidance behavior driving heterogeneous marginal health effects. Total daily costs of a one standard deviation increase in PM10 represent 0.5% of the total daily health expenditure, and 85% of this additional spending comes from more patients hospitalized, while the remaining 15% can be attributable to more costly, and likely more complex, hospitalizations.

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  • Giaccherini, Matilde & Kopinska, Joanna & Palma, Alessandro, 2021. "When particulate matter strikes cities: Social disparities and health costs of air pollution," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jhecon:v:78:y:2021:i:c:s0167629621000631
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2021.102478
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    Cited by:

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    3. Jason Brown & Colton Tousey, 2020. "Death of Coal and Breath of Life: The Effect of Power Plant Closure on Local Air Quality," Research Working Paper RWP 20-15, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
    4. Liu, Ziheng & Chen, Xi & Lu, Qinan, 2023. "Blowin' in the Wind of an Invisible Killer: Long-Term Exposure to Ozone and Respiratory Mortality in the United States," IZA Discussion Papers 15981, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Singh, Tejendra Pratap, 2022. "Beyond The Haze: Air Pollution and Student Absenteeism - Evidence from India," OSF Preprints pcva2, Center for Open Science.
    6. Martin Hensher, 2023. "Climate change, health and sustainable healthcare: The role of health economics," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(5), pages 985-992, May.
    7. Mengna Luan & Zhigang Tao & Hongjie Yuan, 2023. "Alive but not well: The neglected cost of air pollution," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(11), pages 2535-2567, November.
    8. Bagilet, Vincent & Zabrocki-Hallak, Léo, 2022. "Why Some Acute Health Effects of Air Pollution Could Be Inflated," I4R Discussion Paper Series 11, The Institute for Replication (I4R).
    9. Gabriele Curci & Domenico Depalo & Alessandro Palma, 2023. "The Dirtier You Breathe, The Less Safe You Are. The Effect of Air Pollution on Work Accidents," CEIS Research Paper 554, Tor Vergata University, CEIS, revised 24 May 2023.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Health effects of air pollution; Public transportation strikes; Hospitalization costs; Environmental inequality;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I14 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health and Inequality
    • Q53 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Air Pollution; Water Pollution; Noise; Hazardous Waste; Solid Waste; Recycling
    • R41 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Transportation Economics - - - Transportation: Demand, Supply, and Congestion; Travel Time; Safety and Accidents; Transportation Noise

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