Health Impact Assessment of Volcanic Ash Inhalation: A Comparison With Outdoor Air Pollution Methods

This paper assesses the extent of health impacts in communities exposed to volcanic emission.

This paper critically appraises the extrapolation of concentration response functions (CRFs) for fine and coarse particulate matter used in outdoor air pollution health impact assessment (HIA) studies to assess the extent of health impacts in communities exposed to volcanic emissions.

The study concludes that the best available strategy, at present, is to apply outdoor air pollution risk estimates to scenarios involving volcanic ash emissions for the purposes of health impact assessment. However, due to the knowledge gaps on, for example, the health effects from exposure to volcanic ash and differences in ash composition, there is inherent uncertainty in this application. To conclude, we suggest actions to enable better prediction and assessment of health impacts of volcanic emissions.