Estimating the Economic Impact of Climate Change on Cardiovascular Diseases—Evidence from Taiwan

Abstract

Abstract:The main purpose of this study was to investigate how climate change affects blood vessel-related heart disease and hypertension and to estimate the associated economic damage. In this paper, both the panel data model and the contingent valuation method (CVM) approaches are applied. The empirical results indicate that the number of death from cardiovascular diseases would be increased by 0.226% as the variation in temperature increases by 1%. More importantly, the number of death from cardiovascular diseases would be increased by 1.2% to 4.1% under alternative IPCC climate change scenarios. The results from the CVM approach show that each person would be willing to pay US$51 to US$97 per year in order to avoid the increase in the mortality rate of cardiovascular diseases caused by climate change.

Economic Evaluations of the Health Impacts of Weather-Related Extreme Events: A Scoping Review

“…The three studies in Group C [21,34,35] estimated the willingness to pay (WTP) to avoid the adverse health impacts associated with extreme events using the contingent valuation method (see Section 3.5 for further explanations). Two of these WTP studies pertained to mental health effects and well-being reduction from flooding, whereas the third [35] focused on the excess risk of cardiovascular death from heat-stress and also estimated the functional relationship between these two outcomes using data for Taiwan.…”

“…Two of these WTP studies pertained to mental health effects and well-being reduction from flooding, whereas the third [35] focused on the excess risk of cardiovascular death from heat-stress and also estimated the functional relationship between these two outcomes using data for Taiwan. Two WTP studies were undertaken in high-income countries (Taiwan and Japan) and one in a low-income country (Vietnam).…”

The impact of extremely high temperatures on mortality and mortality cost

“…A study in Philadelphia (Ebi et al 2004) estimated this amount to be $4 million dollars, a figure that was calculated based on the highest percentage of deaths by age group. Another study (Liao et al 2010) estimated the economic cost data associated with heart disease to be aggravated by the increased temperature based on economic data obtained through the contingent valuation method and the willingness to pay.…”