Evaluating the effectiveness of air quality interventions

Evaluating the extent to which air quality regulations improve public health-sometimes referred to as accountability-is part of an emerging effort to assess the effectiveness of environmental regulatory policies. Air quality has improved substantially in the United States and Western Europe in recent decades, with far less visible pollution and decreasing concentrations of several major pollutants. In large part, these gains were achieved through increasingly stringent air quality regulations. The costs associated with compliance and, importantly, the need to ensure that the regulations are achieving the intended public health benefits underscore the importance of accountability research. To date, accountability research has emphasized measuring the effects of actions already taken to improve air quality. Such research may also contribute to estimating the burden of disease that might be avoided in the future if certain actions are taken. The Health Effects Institute (HEI) currently funds eight ongoing studies on accountability, which cover near-term interventions to improve air quality including (1) a ban on the sale of coal, (2) replacing old wood stoves with cleaner ones, (3) decreasing sulfur content in fuel, (4) measures to reduce traffic, and (5) longer term, wide-ranging actions or events (such as complex changes associated with the reunification of Germany). HEI is also funding the development of methods and research to assess regulations that are implemented incrementally over extended periods of time, such as Title IV of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments, which reduces sulfur dioxide emissions from power plants in the eastern United States.