IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/riskan/v28y2008i3p603-613.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Global Health Impacts and Costs Due to Mercury Emissions

Author

Listed:
  • Joseph V. Spadaro
  • Ari Rabl

Abstract

Since much of the emission is in the form of metallic Hg whose atmospheric residence time is long enough to cause nearly uniform mixing in the hemisphere, much of the impact is global. This article presents a first estimate of global average neurotoxic impacts and costs by defining a comprehensive transfer factor for ingestion of methyl‐Hg as ratio of global average dose rate and global emission rate. For the dose‐response function (DRF) we use recent estimates of IQ decrement as function of Hg concentration in blood, as well as correlations between blood concentration and Hg ingestion. The cost of an IQ point is taken as $18,000 in the United States and applied in other countries in proportion to per capita GDP, adjusted for purchase power parity. The mean estimate of the global average of the marginal damage cost per emitted kg of Hg is about $1,500/kg, if one assumes a dose threshold of 6.7 μg/day of methyl‐Hg per person, and $3,400/kg without threshold. The average global lifetime impact and cost per person at current emission levels are 0.02 IQ points lost and $78 with and 0.087 IQ points and $344 without threshold. These results are global averages; for any particular source and emission site the impacts can be quite different. An assessment of the overall uncertainties indicates that the damage cost could be a factor 4 smaller or larger than the median estimate (the uncertainty distribution is approximately log normal and the ratio median/mean is approximately 0.4).

Suggested Citation

  • Joseph V. Spadaro & Ari Rabl, 2008. "Global Health Impacts and Costs Due to Mercury Emissions," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 28(3), pages 603-613, June.
  • Handle: RePEc:wly:riskan:v:28:y:2008:i:3:p:603-613
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1539-6924.2008.01041.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1539-6924.2008.01041.x
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1539-6924.2008.01041.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Joseph V. Spadaro & Ari Rabl, 2004. "Pathway Analysis for Population‐Total Health Impacts of Toxic Metal Emissions," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 24(5), pages 1121-1141, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Evan K. Paleologos & Mohamed Elhakeem & Mohamed El Amrousi, 2018. "Bayesian Analysis of Air Emission Violations from Waste Incineration and Coincineration Plants," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 38(11), pages 2368-2378, November.
    2. Gasparinnetti, Pedro & Bakker, Leonardo Barcellos & Queiroz, Julia Mello & Vilela, Thais, 2024. "Economic valuation of artisanal small-scale gold mining impacts: A framework for value transfer application," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    3. Leonardo Barcellos de Bakker & Pedro Gasparinetti & Júlia Mello de Queiroz & Ana Claudia Santiago de Vasconcellos, 2021. "Economic Impacts on Human Health Resulting from the Use of Mercury in the Illegal Gold Mining in the Brazilian Amazon: A Methodological Assessment," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(22), pages 1-26, November.
    4. Vincent Nedellec & Ari Rabl, 2016. "Costs of Health Damage from Atmospheric Emissions of Toxic Metals: Part 1—Methods and Results," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 36(11), pages 2081-2095, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Marko Tainio & Piotr Holnicki & Miranda M. Loh & Zbigniew Nahorski, 2014. "Intake Fraction Variability Between Air Pollution Emission Sources Inside an Urban Area," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 34(11), pages 2021-2034, November.
    2. Vincent Nedellec & Ari Rabl, 2016. "Costs of Health Damage from Atmospheric Emissions of Toxic Metals: Part 1—Methods and Results," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 36(11), pages 2081-2095, November.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:riskan:v:28:y:2008:i:3:p:603-613. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1111/(ISSN)1539-6924 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.