Associated health benefits on mortality of reducing Particulate Matter (PM2.5) in Spain

Abstract

The objective of the study was to estimate the number of avoidable deaths resulting from reducing ambient air concentrations of PM2.5 in Spain. We used the Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) model of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to simulate the levels of air pollution over the whole country corresponding to 2004 -the baseline year- and to estimate the future pollution scenario in 2011 with a reduction in PM2.5 based on air quality policies. To calculate the health impact we used: a) municipal crude mortality rates (all causes, ICD-10: A00-Y98), and population figures of 2004, and b) the concentration-response functions (CRF) based on available epidemiological studies for this health indicator (Pope et al.,2002; Laden et al.,2006). For this purpose, the U.S. EPA´s BenMAP software was used to obtain a global figure of avoidable deaths for the country. According to the simulation, air quality would improve with an average annual reduction of 0.7μg/m 3 in PM2.5 levels. According to Pope’s CRF, this change in PM2.5 levels would imply an annual decline in overall mortality in Spain of 1,718 deaths in the population older than 30 years (6 avoided deaths per 100 000 inhabitants). The total number of deaths in this age range would decrease by 0.5%. According to Laden´s CRF, which restricts the analysis to people between 25-74 years old, the air quality improvement would avoid 1,447 deaths per year. These results show the potential benefits in mortality that could be expected if pollution control policies were successfully implemented in Spai