The Impact of Health Status and Experienced Disutility on Air Quality Valuation

Anna Bartczak, Wiktor Budzinski, Bartosz Jusypenko and Piotr W. Boros

Ecological Economics, 2024, vol. 217, issue C

Abstract: This paper examines the impact of health status, and of experienced disutility caused by air pollution, on individuals' preferences regarding the health risk reductions resulting from air quality improvement. We investigate if changes in the level of experienced disutility due to air pollution mediate the relationship between individuals' respiratory health status and their preferences regarding health risk reductions. For this purpose, we conducted a choice experiment study among inhabitants of four big Polish cities that have varying levels of particulate matter pollution. We used the modified Medical Research Council breathlessness scale, verified in clinical trials, to obtain information about respondents’ health status, except for usually applied health status measures in stated preference surveys. We do not find any direct impact of health status (apart from smoking) on willingness to pay for air quality improvement. Our results indicate, however, that individuals who self-reported a respiratory diagnosis, as well as those who scored high on the breathlessness scale, are more likely to display a latent trait indicating experienced disutility due to air pollution, and that those who experience this disutility are, in general, more in favour of air quality improvement programmes.

Keywords: Air pollution; Choice experiment; Experienced disutility; Health status; Hybrid choice model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800923003348
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:217:y:2024:i:c:s0921800923003348

DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2023.108071

Access Statistics for this article

Ecological Economics is currently edited by C. J. Cleveland

More articles in Ecological Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().