Schwela D H
World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland.
Epidemiology. 1999 Sep;10(5):647-55.
This paper discusses the importance of public health studies with respect to risk assessment and risk management in the framework of air quality management. This is performed with respect to the Air Management Information System (AMIS), which was set up recently by the World Health Organization. The Air Management Information System is an information-exchange system in the scheme of the Global Air Quality Partnership providing information on all issues of air quality management between its participants: municipalities, countries' environmental protection agencies, international organizations, World Bank and international development banks, and nongovernmental organizations. Public health studies of air pollution-induced health effects are an important ingredient for decisions with respect to the management of air quality. First, they are to be used to derive air quality standards from air quality guidelines. Secondly, they serve to assess the causal link between observed health effects in the population and the causative agents in the air. Thirdly, they can be used to estimate ideal (in the sense of not being expressed in monetary terms) or economic damage functions that are necessary to assess the magnitude of the ideal or economic damages to human health. The latter are necessary for a sensible cost-benefit analysis in which the costs of control measures to reduce air pollution are compared with the costs of health effects.
本文探讨了在空气质量管理制度框架下，公共卫生研究对于风险评估和风险管理的重要性。这是针对世界卫生组织最近设立的空气管理信息系统（AMIS）进行的。空气管理信息系统是全球空气质量伙伴关系计划中的一个信息交换系统，为其参与者（包括城市、各国环境保护机构、国际组织、世界银行和国际开发银行以及非政府组织）提供有关空气质量管理所有问题的信息。空气污染对健康影响的公共卫生研究是空气质量管理决策的重要组成部分。首先，它们用于从空气质量准则中推导空气质量标准。其次，它们用于评估人群中观察到的健康影响与空气中致病因素之间的因果关系。第三，它们可用于估计理想的（非货币意义上的）或经济损害函数，这些函数对于评估对人类健康的理想或经济损害程度是必要的。后者对于明智的成本效益分析是必要的，在该分析中，将减少空气污染的控制措施成本与健康影响成本进行比较。
