Air Quality Health Risk Assessments

The concentrations data are taken from the ETC/ATNI interpolated maps (ETC HE Report 2022/12 and ETC/ATNI Eionet Report 1/2021 and references therein)

The tables above present information on demographics, air quality and mortality due to exposure to air pollution at different spatial levels, for 41 European countries (please be aware that for PM_2.5, there are no data for Türkiye). All of them show:

• population, area,
• concentration average and population-weighted concentration (a measure of exposure), for particulate matter (both PM_2.5 and PM₁₀), nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) and ozone (O₃),
• number of premature deaths and number of years of life lost (with the corresponding 95% confidence intervals) for the previous four pollutants except PM₁₀.

The first table shows the information at country level for the 41 European countries (and for three different aggregations (the 27 European Union countries; the 32 European Environment Agency member countries; and all the 41 (or 40) countries).

The second table shows the information at different NUTS level: NUTS0 (country), NUTS1, NUTS2 and NUTS3.

The third table shows the information for two types of cities: those defined in the Eurostat urban audit collection (available choosing “ESTAT Urban Audit Cities (LAU)” at the filter “City Boundary Specification (LAU/grid)”), and the DG Regio Urban Centres (through “Urban Centres (grid)” in the same filter).

More information on Urban Centres.

All tables are prefiltered for specific values (for instance, most recent year with data and the pollutant PM_2.5) but this can be changed in the specific filters, which are self-explanatory except for “Degree of urbanisation”, “Health Risk Scenario” and “Level Of Aggregation”. The first filter, present in the first two tables, selects the corresponding spatial unit (country, or the specific NUTS regions) as a whole (“All Areas (incl.unclassified)”) or only the specific parts that correspond to the three defined degrees of urbanisation (“Rural grid cells”, “Urban clusters” or “Urban centers”). Unless interested in the differences due to urbanisation, please always select “All areas”.

The health risk scenario filter represents the assumptions considered for the mortality calculations and correspond to the following:

• WHO_2005_HRAPIE_Scen_Base: the concentration-response functions are those defined in WHO, 2013, with counterfactual concentrations of 0µg/m³ for PM_2.5, 20µg/m³ for NO₂ and 70µg/m³ for O₃. These are the assumptions used by EEA for its calculations up to 2021.
• WHO_2021_AQG_Scen_Base: Concentration response functions as defined in WHO, 2021, with counterfactual concentrations of 5µg/m³ for PM_2.5, 10µg/m³ for NO₂ and 70µg/m³ for O₃. These are the assumptions used by EEA for its main calculations from 2022 and, for PM_2.5 and NO₂, represent the mortality that could be avoided if the corresponding air quality guideline levels had been achieved everywhere, and the same for O₃ having achieved 70µg/m³.
• WHO_2021_AQG_Scen_Sensitivity_2: the concentration response functions are as defined in WHO_2021_AQG_Scen_Base, but with counterfactual concentrations of 0µg/m³ for PM_2.5, 0µg/m³ for NO₂ and 20µg/m³ for O₃. In this sensitivity analysis, the total mortality is estimated for PM_2.5 and NO₂, including also at low concentrations, even if for those concentrations the uncertainty of the estimations is bigger; and mortality above 20µg/m³ is estimated for O₃.

Finally, the filter “Level Of Aggregation” in the third table specifies how the cities are represented: individually (“City specific”), aggregated by the country they belong to (“Urban Centres – Country Totals”), or aggregated for the total EU27, EEA32 or the whole set of countries available (“Urban Centres – Totals”). The last two options are only available for the Urban Centres, not for the urban audit cities.

Additional information on the calculations of the mortality can be found at the Eionet ETC HE Report 2022/10