摘要：Objectives. To demonstrate the benefits-mapping software Environmental Benefits Mapping and Analysis Program-Community Edition (BenMAP-CE), which integrates local air quality data with previously published concentration–response and health–economic valuation functions to estimate the health effects of changes in air pollution levels and their economic consequences. Methods. We illustrate a local health impact assessment of ozone changes in the 10-county nonattainment area of the Dallas–Fort Worth region of Texas, estimating the short-term effects on mortality predicted by 2 scenarios for 3 years (2008, 2011, and 2013): an incremental rollback of the daily 8-hour maximum ozone levels of all area monitors by 10 parts per billion and a rollback-to-a-standard ambient level of 65 parts per billion at only monitors above that level. Results. Estimates of preventable premature deaths attributable to ozone air pollution obtained by the incremental rollback method varied little by year, whereas those obtained by the rollback-to-a-standard method varied by year and were sensitive to the choice of ordinality and the use of preloaded or imported data. Conclusions. BenMAP-CE allows local and regional public health analysts to generate timely, evidence-based estimates of the health impacts and economic consequences of potential policy options in their communities. Potential changes in the National Ambient Air Quality Standards or local proposals to eliminate sources of air pollution frequently generate local and regional discussions about the implications of these changes on the affected communities and industries. Central to these discussions are the effects of poor air quality on human health and agriculture, the potential economic consequences of pollutant exposure or pollutant mitigation, and the community’s preparedness to address potential changes. Quantitative assessments of the health and economic impacts of changes in national standards and local mitigation plans can inform air quality management strategies intended to benefit human health by reducing pollution levels. 1 Frequently, environmental scientists, engineers, and public health practitioners are called on to participate in such discussions by performing environmental impact assessments, developing local air quality simulation models, and offering informed expert opinions about potential policy changes. Expert contributions in local and regional settings can be bolstered significantly by timely, quantitative estimates of the potential health effects and health-related economic impacts of different air quality standards on the local scale. 2 However, local health impact analyses pose unique methodological challenges, 3 and these analyses have historically required expensive computing resources and technical expertise that are not routinely available to community-based health agencies or local advisory groups. A variety of sources in the Dallas–Fort Worth (DFW) region emit pollutants that are precursors to ground-level ozone and have thus inhibited the ability of this region to attain the ozone standard. Included among these sources are a number of coal-fired power plants. 4 To explore the benefits from simulated attainment with a hypothetical alternate ozone standard, we undertook a computer modeling project to estimate the magnitude of ozone-attributable health benefits expected to result from improving ozone air quality. We used a new open-source software program called the Environmental Benefits Mapping and Analysis Program-Community Edition (BenMAP-CE). This tool integrates local air quality data with epidemiological, demographic, and economic data to quantify the health effects and associated economic values of poor air quality. Earlier versions of BenMAP (version 4.0 and earlier) were applied primarily by technical analysts and academic groups to inform discussions of air quality policy. 5–8 Recently, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a community edition of BenMAP (available at https://www.epa.gov/benmap ), making the software more practical for use by the public health community, local researchers and clinicians, and nongovernmental organizations in the United States and internationally. Other researchers have also begun to employ BenMAP-CE. 9–11 We present a strategic overview of the BenMAP-CE modeling process, which we illustrate with 2 simulated scenarios in which DFW ozone-monitoring data were reduced or rolled back using a specified algorithm (a rollback scenario applied in the software): (1) an incremental rollback of 10 parts per billion applied to the daily 8-hour maximum (D8HourMax) ozone metric at all area ozone monitors, and (2) a rollback of D8HourMax ozone values to a hypothetical alternate standard applied to the subset of local monitors that measure ozone levels above such a hypothetical alternate standard. We describe several important considerations for future users and offer recommendations about the application and publication of BenMAP-CE results. These methods may be applied to other geographic settings, pollutant metrics, or air quality scenarios, allowing generation of a variety of timely, region-specific, evidence-based estimates of the health effects and economic consequences of potential policy options. We offer more detailed explanations for future BenMAP-CE users in Appendix A (available as a supplement to the online version of this article at http://www.ajph.org ).
