Several aspects of the environment, such as exposure to air pollution or noise, can have effects on our health. In order to gain some perspective on the dimensions of this environment-related health loss in the Netherlands, we have calculated Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) for the health effects of air pollution, noise, radon, natural UV-radiation and indoor dampness for the years 1980, 2000 and 2020. DALYs give a crude indication of the estimated number of healthy-life-years-lost in a population due to premature mortality or morbidity (the disease burden). In the Netherlands, roughly 2 to 5 percent of the disease burden (as calculated for 49 (groups of) diseases) can be attributed to the effects of (short-term) exposure to air pollution, noise, radon, total natural UV and dampness in houses for the year 2000. Including the more uncertain long-term effects of PM10 exposure, this can increase to slightly over ten percent, assuming no threshold. Assuming a reference level of 20 µg/m3 will give an estimate of roughly 3 to 9 percent. Among the investigated factors, the relatively uncertain effects of long-term PM10 exposure have the greatest impact. Long-term PM10 is an indicator for a complex urban air pollution mixture. The levels of PM10 are decreasing; therefore the related disease burden is also expected to decrease. Noise exposure and its associated disease burden will probably increase up to a level where the disease burden is similar to that attributable to traffic accidents. These rough estimates do not provide a complete and unambiguous picture of the environmental disease burden; data are uncertain, not all environmental-health relationships are known, not all environmental factors are included, nor was it possible to assess all potential health effects. The effects of a number of these assumptions were evaluated in uncertainty analyses. (Author/publisher)
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