Economic Evaluations of the Health Impacts of Weather-Related Extreme Events: A Scoping Review

Laetitia H. M. Schmitt, Hilary M. Graham and Piran C. L. White
Additional contact information
Laetitia H. M. Schmitt: Centre for Health Economics, University of York, YO10 5DD York, UK
Hilary M. Graham: Health Sciences Department, University of York, YO10 5DD York, UK
Piran C. L. White: Environment Department, University of York, Wentworth Way, YO10 5NG York, UK

IJERPH, 2016, vol. 13, issue 11, 1-19

Abstract: The frequency and severity of extreme events is expected to increase under climate change. There is a need to understand the economic consequences of human exposure to these extreme events, to underpin decisions on risk reduction. We undertook a scoping review of economic evaluations of the adverse health effects from exposure to weather-related extreme events. We searched PubMed, Embase and Web of Science databases with no restrictions to the type of evaluations. Twenty studies were included, most of which were recently published. Most studies have been undertaken in the U.S. (nine studies) or Asia (seven studies), whereas we found no studies in Africa, Central and Latin America nor the Middle East. Extreme temperatures accounted for more than a third of the pool of studies (seven studies), closely followed by flooding (six studies). No economic study was found on drought. Whilst studies were heterogeneous in terms of objectives and methodology, they clearly indicate that extreme events will become a pressing public health issue with strong welfare and distributional implications. The current body of evidence, however, provides little information to support decisions on the allocation of scarce resources between risk reduction options. In particular, the review highlights a significant lack of research attention to the potential cost-effectiveness of interventions that exploit the capacity of natural ecosystems to reduce our exposure to, or ameliorate the consequences of, extreme events.

Keywords: climate change; heat waves; floods; hurricanes; economic evaluation; morbidity; mental health; mortality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/13/11/1105/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/13/11/1105/ (text/html)

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:gam:jijerp:v:13:y:2016:i:11:p:1105-:d:82417

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().