Research links ozone to premature death

The National Research Council has finally admitted the link between short-term exposure to certain levels of ozone in many areas and premature deaths. The evidence is said to be so strong that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is obliged to set a new public health standard by including ozone-related health issues in health-benefit analyses.

Till now, opinions varied as interpretation of evidence proving that ozone, a key element of smog, causes respiratory problems after less than 24 hour exposure have varied so not only was an official point of view necessary, but a correlation between ozone-mortality and the health-benefits assessments was needed as well.

So far, the Research Council found that people already suffering from certain diseases have an increased suscebility to die from ozone exposure. This is the reason why a certain threshold of ozone concentration is hard to determine as much depends on a person’s frailty.

Future research will probably be able to assign a monetary value to avoided deaths, deciding how much will someone be willing to pay to change their risk or death from ozone exposure. For now, the value of a statistical life (VSL) remains independent to this type of exposure and research costing over 100$ million per year continues.