Meeting

‘Valuation of Environment-Related Health Impacts’ 
(17-18 September 2009, Prague)

A Conference on ‘Valuation of Environment-Related Health Impacts’ has been held in Prague, Czech Republic, on 17-18 September 2009. A principal aim of the Conference was to present new empirical results on the valuation of environmentally related health effects for children. The lack of research in this area has been a barrier to the provision of sound policy advice. Indeed, the values currently used for the monetisation of environment-related health impacts focus on adult populations, and use scenarios that often do not match well with environmental scenarios.

As such, there is concern that the continued use of such estimates from unrelated contexts may result in misguided benefit-cost analyses, and in a possible misallocation of resources, especially when environmental policies with significant implications for children are under consideration. Members of the research consortium presented findings from the VERHI project. Leading academics served as discussants, providing comments on the papers presented, suggestions for improvements to the analysis, and potential future research avenues to pursue. They have also provided insights from their own work.

An agenda and registration form are available.

• Practical information (Prague):

Airport, Transport - metro, Accommodation, Venue, other links.

Presentations

• The VSL derived from the use of a chained approach in The United Kingdom and The Czech Republic  presented by Graham Loomes, University of East Anglia
• Does VSL for children and adults vary for different causes, programmes and demographic characteristics presented by Anna Alberini, University of Maryland
• VSL and MRS for children and adults derived from alternative methods
  presented by Milan Ščasný, Charles University
• Valuing Lives saved from environmental, transport and health policies presented by Nils Axel Braathen - OECD; Henrik Lindhjem - Econ Pöyry and Ståle Navrud - Norwegian University of Life Sciences
• Review of recent empirical studies on health risks valuation presented by Alistair Hunt, University of Bath
• Comments on: Hunt and Ferguson, A Review of Recent Policy-Relevant Findings from the Environmental Health Literature presented by Sandra Hoffmann, Resources for the Future
• Valuation in decision making in the EU presented by Matti Vainio, European Chemicals Agency

Backgroung papers

• Valuing lives saved from environmental, transport and health policies: a meta-analysis of stated preference studies, Nils Axel Braathen (OECD), Henrik Lindhjem (Econ Pöyry) and Ståle Navrud (Norwegian University of Life Sciences).