Sprawl and Health

Colman 2001 - "Cost of Obesity in British Columbia"

Colman, Ronald; Dodds, Colin; Wilson, Jeff
"Cost of Obesity in British Columbia"
January, 2001. GPI Atlantic
On the Web
Relevance: high

Direct costs for obesity-related diseases cost the British Columbia health care system at least CAN$217.3 million a year (2.6% of the health care budget) in 1997. This is a very conservative estimate, so a reasonably higher estimate is $380 million, or 4.5% of the provincial health budget. Note that obesity is defined as BMI>27 for the conservative estimate and BMI>25 for the high estimate.

Using the assumption that the direct health care costs are only 45.7% of the total economic burden of illness, obesity could cost a total of $475.5 million to $831.5 million each year. At the time of writing, $830 million was 0.9% of BC's GDP.

Method: The author uses Birmingham's method of population attributable fractions applied to the BC population and 1997 medical costs.

Pope 2000 - "Epidemiology of Fine Particulate Air Pollution and Human Health"

Pope, C. Arden III
Epidemiology of Fine Particulate Air Pollution and Human Health: Biologic Mechanisms and Who's at Risk?
Environmental Health Perspectives Supplements
August 2000. Volume 108, Number S4, pp.713-723
On the Web
Relevance: high

Chronic exposure to fine PM has been associated with increased mortality from cardiopulmonary disease, increased chronic respiratory diseases (especially bronchitis), and reduced lung function.

Acute exposure to fine PM has been associated with increased mortality from cardiopulmonary diseases; increased hospitalizations for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), asthma, and other respiratory diseases; and increased asthma and lower respiratory symptoms.

For the mortality risk of short-term exposure, the author estimates that a 50 microgram/meter^3 increased in fine PM would result in an average of 1.7 additional deaths per day per one million people, based on the 1996 average death rate of 8.8/1000/year. He notes that this is a rather small number of deaths.