Sparling Alica Stubnova, Martin David W, Posey Lillian B
Department of Economics, Davidson College, Davidson, NC 28035, USA.
Departments of Economics and Environmental Studies, Davidson College, Davidson, NC 28035, USA.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2017 Jun 14;14(6):640. doi: 10.3390/ijerph14060640.
Citing a lack of information, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency prudently did not account for the benefits of averting many chronic diseases in analyzing the Worker Protection Standards (WPS) revisions. We demonstrate that sufficient information can exist, using the example of the benefits to agricultural workers of reduced Parkinson's disease (PD) due to reduced pesticide exposure. We define the benefits as the monetary value gained by improving quality of lives of people who would otherwise develop PD, plus the value of medical care cost averted and income not lost due to being healthy. For estimation, we use readily available parameters and obtain odds ratios of developing PD by conducting a meta-analysis of studies linking pesticide exposure to PD. The sensitivity analysis varies the number of agricultural workers affected by the regulation, the probability of being diagnosed with PD, the measurement and the timing of the benefits. Our initial assessment is that the reduced PD benefits would be a small fraction of the total WPS revision costs. However, if we define benefits as the common environmental economics willingness to pay to avoid PD incidence, then they become a substantial fraction of the costs. Our analysis demonstrates that the benefits of averting PD from the WPS revisions can be estimated using existing information, and that the results are most sensitive to the choice of valuation of benefits to the worker. We encourage other researchers to extend our framework to other chronic ailments.
美国环境保护局以缺乏信息为由，在分析《工人保护标准》（WPS）修订案时，审慎地未考虑避免多种慢性病所带来的益处。我们以农业工人因接触农药减少而患帕金森病（PD）的风险降低为例，证明了可能存在足够的信息。我们将这些益处定义为：改善原本会患帕金森病的人的生活质量所获得的货币价值，加上避免的医疗费用以及因保持健康而未损失的收入。为了进行估算，我们使用了易于获取的参数，并通过对将农药接触与帕金森病联系起来的研究进行荟萃分析，得出患帕金森病的比值比。敏感性分析改变了受该法规影响的农业工人数量、被诊断为帕金森病的概率、益处的衡量方式以及时间。我们的初步评估是，帕金森病风险降低所带来的益处仅占WPS修订总成本的一小部分。然而，如果我们将益处定义为环境经济学中为避免帕金森病发病而愿意支付的常见金额，那么这些益处就会占成本的很大一部分。我们的分析表明，可以利用现有信息估算WPS修订案中避免帕金森病所带来的益处，并且结果对工人益处估值的选择最为敏感。我们鼓励其他研究人员将我们的框架扩展到其他慢性疾病。
