This paper presents a methodology we have developed for assessing human health effects due to the emission of sulfur dioxide from a single fossil fuel power plant. This has been a difficult task to attempt in the past, containing great uncertainty; however, a new EPA model of health effects has recently been published and is, in our opinion, the best and most careful model of health impact of air pollution to date. The EPA model has current best judgements of impacts; it does not include all health effects thought to be related to air pollution. Our methodology was developed around this model using detailed air pollution data from Wisconsin.
The EPA model is based on two main points. The first is that acid sulfates, not SO2, are the root cause of the health effects, and that the important averaging time is one day (24 hours). The second is the well established observation that the frequency of occurrence of different levels of pollution in the course of a year is distributed log-normally. The output of the model is the excess mortality in the population and the excess morbidity in the population for certain ailments and population subgroups due to the exposure to acid sulfates
