COST-BENEFIT RELATIONS IN AIR QUALITY STANDARDS:BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH FOR ASSESSING THE HEALTH COSTS OF AIR POLLUTION

摘要

Community air-quality standards are set to reflect the costs and benefits of air pollution control measures. The costs of air pollution are both intrinsic (effects) and extrinsic (prices). Biomedical scientists are concerned with evaluating the intrinsic costs of pollution, but the standards are set by representatives of society, who evaluate the extrinsic costs. Biomedical science is limited in meeting the expectations of the lay public, since "causality" cannot be proven by epidemio¬logical methods, the range of human experimentation is highly restricted, and results of animal experimentation may be misleading when applied to man. Further¬more, not all the effects of air pollution have yet been discovered;consequently, focusing on the quantification of known ef¬fects alone will result in inadequate assessment. Current methods for studying ef¬fects of pollutants include biochemical, cellular, pathophysiological, pathogenetic, and epidemiological techniques. Mecha¬nisms are studied in the fundamental molecular and cellular systems, whereas societal costs can be determined best by epidemiology arid pathophysiology.