Health Economic Assessment of PM_2.5 Originating from Residential Wood Combustion-A Case Study in Northern Sweden

Residential wood combustion (RWC) is a major local source of fine particulate matter (PM_2.5) in Nordic regions. We quantified the health impacts and economic costs of long-term exposure to PM_2.5 from RWC in Västerbotten County, northern Sweden.

High-resolution annual mean concentrations of PM_2.5 from small-scale residential heating in 2023 were obtained from a national dispersion-modelling system. Population-weighted exposure was calculated by combining grid-level concentrations with home address coordinates for the resident population. Health impact assessment (HIA) followed the framework used in Nordic studies and the VALESOR project, applying a near-source PM_2.5-mortality exposure-response function with a relative risk of 1.26 per 10 µg/m³ for natural-cause mortality and VALESOR default functions for morbidity (ischaemic heart disease, stroke, COPD, lung cancer, type 2 diabetes, dementia, childhood asthma, cardiovascular hospital admissions). Attributable cases and years of life lost (YLL) were estimated, and the economic valuation used VALESOR unit costs for Sweden to derive central, low and high damage-cost estimates.

The population (n = 280,742)-weighted mean RWC-PM_2.5 exposure was 0.16 µg/m³ (interquartile range 0.10-0.21). This was associated with an estimated 30 years of life lost (YLL) per year from natural-cause mortality, plus incident morbidity of approximately 0.3 lung cancer cases, four childhood asthma cases, three COPD cases, three IHD events, one stroke, two dementia cases, one diabetes case and 0.8 cardiovascular hospital admissions annually. The total annual health-related cost attributable to RWC-PM_2.5 was about €7.0 million (95% uncertainty range €4.6-9.4 million), dominated by mortality and disutility costs.

PM_2.5 concentrations from residential wood burning are associated with health impacts costing multi-million Euros in a Nordic region, supporting policies to reduce emissions from residential wood heating and to promote cleaner heating alternatives.