Economic Evaluation of Environmental Interventions: Reflections on Methodological Challenges and Developments

Laura Bojke, Laetitia Schmitt, James Lomas, Gerry Richardson and Helen Weatherly
Additional contact information
Laura Bojke: Centre for Health Economics, University of York, York YO10 5DD, UK
Laetitia Schmitt: Centre for Health Economics, University of York, York YO10 5DD, UK
James Lomas: Centre for Health Economics, University of York, York YO10 5DD, UK
Gerry Richardson: Centre for Health Economics, University of York, York YO10 5DD, UK
Helen Weatherly: Centre for Health Economics, University of York, York YO10 5DD, UK

IJERPH, 2018, vol. 15, issue 11, 1-9

Abstract: Evaluation of the costs and outcomes associated with environmental policies and interventions is often required to inform public policy and allocate scarce resources. Methods to conduct assessments of cost-effectiveness have been developed in the context of pharmaceuticals, but have more recently been applied in public health, diagnostics, and other more complex interventions. The suitability of existing economic evaluation methodology has been explored in many contexts, however, this is yet to be undertaken for interventions and policies pertaining to the natural environment, such as urban green spaces and strategies to reduce indoor and outdoor air pollution. To make significant inroads into the evaluation of interventions and policies relating to the natural environment requires an understanding of the challenges faced in this context. Many of these challenges may be practical (data-related), however, a number are also methodological, and thus have implications for the appropriate framework for economic evaluation. This paper considers some of the challenges faced when conducting cost-effectiveness analyses in this context and explores what solutions have been proposed thus far. The intention is to help pave the way for consideration of which existing framework is most appropriate for the evaluation of natural environment (NE) interventions, or if a distinct framework is required. Environmental policies and interventions relating to the built environment, for example, housing, are not explicitly included here.

Keywords: economic evaluation; cost-effectiveness; public health (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/11/2459/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/11/2459/ (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:15:y:2018:i:11:p:2459-:d:180538

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 ().