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Public Health Impact and Economic Costs of Volkswagen’s Lack of Compliance with the United States’ Emission Standards

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently issued a notice of violation against Volkswagen (VW) for installing a defective device in certain models of diesel cars to circumvent emission tests for nitrogen oxides (NO(x)). We quantified the health and economic impacts of extra NO(x) emiss...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Hou, Lifang, Zhang, Kai, Luthin, Moira A., Baccarelli, Andrea A.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5036724/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27618076
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph13090891
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author Hou, Lifang
Zhang, Kai
Luthin, Moira A.
Baccarelli, Andrea A.
author_facet Hou, Lifang
Zhang, Kai
Luthin, Moira A.
Baccarelli, Andrea A.
author_sort Hou, Lifang
collection PubMed
description The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently issued a notice of violation against Volkswagen (VW) for installing a defective device in certain models of diesel cars to circumvent emission tests for nitrogen oxides (NO(x)). We quantified the health and economic impacts of extra NO(x) emissions attributable to non-compliant vehicles in the U.S. using the EPA’s Co-Benefits Risk Assessment model. We estimated that the total extra NO(x) emitted over one year of operation would result in 5 to 50 premature deaths, 687 to 17,526 work days with restricted activity, and economic costs of $43,479,189 to $423,268,502, based on various assumptions regarding emission scenarios and risks. This study highlights the potential impacts of VW vehicles’ lack of compliance on the health and well-being of the U.S. population.
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spelling pubmed-50367242016-09-29 Public Health Impact and Economic Costs of Volkswagen’s Lack of Compliance with the United States’ Emission Standards Hou, Lifang Zhang, Kai Luthin, Moira A. Baccarelli, Andrea A. Int J Environ Res Public Health Communication The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently issued a notice of violation against Volkswagen (VW) for installing a defective device in certain models of diesel cars to circumvent emission tests for nitrogen oxides (NO(x)). We quantified the health and economic impacts of extra NO(x) emissions attributable to non-compliant vehicles in the U.S. using the EPA’s Co-Benefits Risk Assessment model. We estimated that the total extra NO(x) emitted over one year of operation would result in 5 to 50 premature deaths, 687 to 17,526 work days with restricted activity, and economic costs of $43,479,189 to $423,268,502, based on various assumptions regarding emission scenarios and risks. This study highlights the potential impacts of VW vehicles’ lack of compliance on the health and well-being of the U.S. population. MDPI 2016-09-08 2016-09 /pmc/articles/PMC5036724/ /pubmed/27618076 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph13090891 Text en © 2016 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Communication
Hou, Lifang
Zhang, Kai
Luthin, Moira A.
Baccarelli, Andrea A.
Public Health Impact and Economic Costs of Volkswagen’s Lack of Compliance with the United States’ Emission Standards
title Public Health Impact and Economic Costs of Volkswagen’s Lack of Compliance with the United States’ Emission Standards
title_full Public Health Impact and Economic Costs of Volkswagen’s Lack of Compliance with the United States’ Emission Standards
title_fullStr Public Health Impact and Economic Costs of Volkswagen’s Lack of Compliance with the United States’ Emission Standards
title_full_unstemmed Public Health Impact and Economic Costs of Volkswagen’s Lack of Compliance with the United States’ Emission Standards
title_short Public Health Impact and Economic Costs of Volkswagen’s Lack of Compliance with the United States’ Emission Standards
title_sort public health impact and economic costs of volkswagen’s lack of compliance with the united states’ emission standards
topic Communication
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5036724/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27618076
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph13090891
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