To the best of our knowledge, this study provides the first broad-scale, nation-wide analysis of a set of long-term morbidity effects of air pollution and assessment of their economic impacts in France. We used the Health Risk Assessment method and the latest concentration-response functions, both from the World Health Organization (WHO). The economic analysis - a comprehensive cost of illness approach - includes direct health and non-health care costs, indirect and intangible costs. Beyond its impact on mortality, the study shows that lowering PM2.5 levels over time in France would produce substantial health and well-being benefits by reducing the onset of several diseases. Documented here as attributable to long-term exposure to anthropogenic PM2.5 on average in a given year are 20 % of new cases of respiratory diseases in children and 7–11 % of new cases of respiratory, cardiovascular or metabolic diseases in adults. We also show that reducing PM2.5 concentrations to WHO's air-quality guideline (AQG) levels would reduce morbidity attributable to this anthropogenic pollution by up to 75 %. Finally, if average PM2.5 levels were reduced to their anthropogenic thresholds, annual benefits to health and well-being for the diseases studied would total €201812.88 billion. Given these findings, complying with WHO AQG would reduce mortality and morbidity attributable to air pollution in France and help achieve the objective of WHO's Global Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases, namely a one-third reduction in the risk of dying from a chronic disease by 2030.
Auteur : Corso Magali, Medina Sylvia, Chanel Olivier, Wagner Vérène, de Crouy-Chanel Perrine, Colette Augustin, Real Elsa, Host Sabine, Blanchard Myriam, Boulanger Guillaume
Atmospheric Environment, 2025, vol. 361, p. 121450
