Researchers at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health find that clean air and climate policies aimed at reducing fossil fuel emissions and air pollution prevent large numbers of deaths and illness in adults and children. The new analysis of peer-reviewed scientific findings also reports substantial economic benefits. The findings are published in the Journal of Climate Change and Health(link is external and opens in a new window).

Researchers reviewed 26 studies of the health benefits of specific clean air or climate policies in terms of the estimated numbers of avoided premature deaths, asthma and other respiratory illness, preterm birth, low birth weight, and neurodevelopmental impairment.

Every study they reviewed reported positive and substantial health benefits. In studies that assessed the economic benefits of these policies, those benefits were substantial; two studies found that the health savings would meaningfully offset or exceed the costs of policy implementation.

The researchers say the benefits are likely to be serious undercounts as most studies included a limited suite of outcomes; economic savings generally included only short-term costs of illness or developmental impairment; and the health benefits of climate policies were estimated as “co-benefits” of reduced air pollution, omitting potential health benefits from fewer climate impacts like more severe forest fires, storms and floods.

“Despite their limitations, taken together the studies reviewed here testify to the effectiveness of clean air and climate policies in protecting public health. At a time when the role of government in protecting public health is being questioned, the results demonstrate the importance of policies to address the escalating problems of climate change and air pollution,” says corresponding author Frederica Perera, DrPH, PhD, special research scientist and professor emerita of environmental health sciences at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and director of the Program in Translational Research at the Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health.

“This review underscores the need for assessments with a broader suite of health outcomes, more focus on low-income countries, greater attention to equity in the distribution of benefits, and fuller estimates of avoided costs that consider potential long-term benefits,” says study co-author Kathleen Lau, MS ’22, a project coordinator at the Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health.

Support for the research was provided by The John and Wendy Neu Foundation, The New York Community Trust, and The Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Residency.