The study focused on hospital spending incurred by healthcare purchases and payors attributable to California not meeting clean air standards. Researchers looked at health endpoints associated with PM2.5 and ozone, including respiratory and cardiovascular hospital admissions and ER visits for asthma.
A total of 29,808 pollution-related hospital events were recorded by the study — the most common being PM2.5-related ER visits for asthma among patients 17 and younger (12,190). Acute bronchitis, pneumonia or COPD admission due to ozone among all ages accounted for the second-highest event with 6,056 events; hospitals also incurred the highest spending for these events at $56.5 million from 2005-2007.
From 2005-2007, hospitals charged $766.7 million for pollution-related events, according to the study.
Read the RAND Corp.’s study The Impact of Air Quality on Hospital Spending (pdf).
