Health and Economic Impacts Assessment of O(3) Exposure in Mexico

Health effects related to exposure to air pollution such as ozone (O(3)) have been documented. The World Health Organization has recommended the use of the Sum of O(3) Means Over 35 ppb (SOMO35) to perform Health Impact Assessments (HIA) for long-term exposure to O(3). We estimated the avoidable mortality associated with long-term exposure to tropospheric O(3) in 14 cities in Mexico using information for 2015. The economic valuation of avoidable deaths related to SOMO35 exposure was performed using the willingness to pay (WTP) and human capital (HC) approaches. We estimated that 627 deaths (95% uncertainty interval (UI): 227–1051) from respiratory diseases associated with the exposure to O(3) would have been avoided in people over 30 years in the study area, which confirms the public health impacts of ambient air pollution. The avoidable deaths account for almost 1400 million USD under the WTP approach, whilst the HC method yielded a lost productivity estimate of 29.7 million USD due to premature deaths. Our findings represent the first evidence of the health impacts of O(3) exposure in Mexico, using SOMO35 metrics.