Valuing health effects from the industrial air pollution in rural Tianjin, China

Article type: Research Article

Authors: YANG, Zhi-feng | XU, Lin-yu

Affiliations: State Key Joint Laboratory of Environmental Simulation and Pollution Control, Institute of Environmental Sciences, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China

Note: [] Corresponding author. E-mail: zfyang@bnu.edu.cn; xly@mail.bnu.edu.cn

Abstract: High concentrations of air pollutants such as total suspended particulates (TSP) and sulfur dioxide (SO_2) have serious impacts on nearby populations. In this paper, a survey of rural Tianjin residents' willingness-to-pay for health improvement was reported on, and the MBDC (multiple bounded discrete choice) model was adopted to study the respondents' willingness-to-pay to prevent respiratory illnesses. The results showed that the willingness-to-pay for health improvement was affected by respondents' health condition, work situation and environmental awareness, but not by personal habits, such as smoking. If person's willingness-to-pay to avoid respiratory diseases can be considered equal to the cost to personal health caused by air pollution, the total cost will reach 538 × 10^6 RMB Yuan (RMB, equal to 65 million USD) per year.

Keywords: health loss, MBDC, willingness-to-pay, TVIE, Tianjin City

Journal: Journal of Environmental Sciences, vol. 16, no. 1, pp. 157-160, 2004