Use of indexes in evaluating environmental and health efficiency

Halkos, George and Argyropoulou, Georgia (2024): Use of indexes in evaluating environmental and health efficiency.

Abstract

Widespread in THE literature is the conclusion that air pollution is associated with various health problems. The present study discusses two discrete Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) models and two related indexes. This approach has been adopted in previous research by Halkos & Argyropoulou (2021a, 2021b, 2022). Consequently, this paper uses inputs and insights published in the above-mentioned studies to evaluate the efficiency of managing pollutant levels in terms of health status at a country level. The main objective here is to offer useful tools to researchers, so that depending on their needs they can refer to the appropriate methodology, comparing the above evaluation models and presenting their capabilities, advantages and disadvantages.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Environmental Efficiency; Mortality; DEA; Energy;ˑAir pollution; Health effects; Sustainable Development Goals; Bertelsmann Index; ˑ Distance Measure Index.
• Subjects: C - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods > C6 - Mathematical Methods ; Programming Models ; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling > C67 - Input-Output Models; I - Health, Education, and Welfare > I1 - Health > I10 - General; I - Health, Education, and Welfare > I1 - Health > I15 - Health and Economic Development; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O1 - Economic Development > O13 - Agriculture ; Natural Resources ; Energy ; Environment ; Other Primary Products; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O4 - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity > O44 - Environment and Growth; Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics ; Environmental and Ecological Economics > Q0 - General > Q01 - Sustainable Development; Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics ; Environmental and Ecological Economics > Q4 - Energy > Q40 - General; Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics ; Environmental and Ecological Economics > Q5 - Environmental Economics > Q53 - Air Pollution ; Water Pollution ; Noise ; Hazardous Waste ; Solid Waste ; Recycling; Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics ; Environmental and Ecological Economics > Q5 - Environmental Economics > Q56 - Environment and Development ; Environment and Trade ; Sustainability ; Environmental Accounts and Accounting ; Environmental Equity ; Population Growth

References

Akhtar, R., Dutt, A. K., & Wadhwa, V. (2002). Health planning and the resurgence of malaria in urban India. In R. Akhtar (Ed.), Urban Health in Third World (pp. 65–92). New Delhi: APH Publishers.

Ashbolt, N.J., 2004. Microbial contamination of drinking water and disease outcomes in developing regions. Toxicology 198, 229–238.

Atkinson, R. W., Fuller, G. W., Anderson, H. R., Harrison, R. M., & Armstrong, B. (2010). Urban ambient particle metrics and health: A time-series analysis. Epidemiology, 21(4), 501–511.

Banker, R., Charnes, A., & Cooper, W. W. (1984). Some models for estimating technical and scale inefficiencies in data envelopment analysis. Management Science, 30(9), 1078–1092.

Brook, R. D., Franklin, B., Cascio, W., Hong, Y., Howard, G., Lipsett, M., et al. (2004). Air pollution and cardiovascular disease: A statement for healthcare professionals from the expert panel on population and prevention science. Circulation, 109(21), 2655–2671.

Brunekreef, B. (2005). Epidemiological evidence of effects of coarse airborne particles on health. European Respiratory Journal, 26(2), 309–318.

Cadelis, G., Tourres, R., & Molinie, J. (2014). Short-term effects of the particulate pollutants contained in Saharan dust on the visits of children to the emergency department due to asthmatic conditions in Guadeloupe (French Archipelago of the Caribbean). PLoS ONE, 9(3), e91136.

Charnes A, Cooper WW (1984) The non-Archimedean CCR ratio for efficiency analysis: a rejoinder to Boyd and Färe. European Journal of Operational Research, 15:333–334.

Charnes A, Cooper WW(1962) Programming with linear fractional functionals. Naval Research Logistics Quarterly, 9:181–186.

Charnes A, Cooper WW, Rhodes E (1979) Short communication: measuring the efficiency of decision making units. European Journal of Operational Research, 196: 1170–1176.

Charnes A, Cooper WW, Rhodes E (1978) Measuring the efficiency of decision making units. European Journal of Operational Research, 2:429–444.

Chen Y, Zhu J (2004) Measuring information technology’s indirect impact on firm performance. Information Technology and Management Journal, 5(1–2):9–22.

Chen Y, Cook WD, Li N, Zhu J (2009) Additive efficiency decomposition in two-stage DEA. European Journal of Operational Research, 196:1170–1176. Ciocco A., Thompson D.J. (1961). A follow-up on Donora ten years after: Methodology and findings. American Journal of Public Health and the Nation’s Health, 51(2), 155–164.

Cohen A.J., Ross Alexander H., Ostro B., Pandey K.D., Kryzanowski M., Kunzail N., et al. (2005). The global burden of disease due to outdoor air pollution. Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health, Part A, 68(13–14), 1301–1307.

Cooper W.W., Seiford L.M., Zhu, J. (2011). Handbook on data envelopment analysis, international series in operations research and management science (2nd ed., Vol. 164). Berlin: Springer.

Correia A.W., Pope C.A. III, Dockery D.W., Wang Y., Ezzati M., Dominici F. (2013). The effect of air pollution control on life expectancy in the United States: An analysis of 545 US counties for the period 2000 to 2007. Epidemiology, 24(1), 23–31.

Daraio C., Simar L. (2007). Advanced robust and nonparametric methods in efficiency analysis. Methodology and applications. New York: Springer.

Dickey J.H. (2000). Air pollution: Overview of sources and health effects. Disease-a-month, 46(9), 566–589.

Efron B. (1979). Bootstrap methods: Another look at the jackknife. Annals of Statistics, 7(1), 1–26.

Fang Y., Naik V., Horowitz L.W., Mauzerall D.L. (2013). Air pollution and associated human mortality: The role of air pollutant emissions, climate change and methane concentration increases from the preindustrial period to present. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 13(3), 1377–1394.

Firket J. (1931). Sur les causes des accidents survenus dans la vallιe de la Meuse, lors des brouillards de dιcembre 1930. Bulletin et Memoires de l’Academie Royale de Medecine de Belgique, 11, 683–741.

Godish T. (2003). Air quality (4th ed.). Boca Raton: CRC Press Inc.

Halkos G., Argyropoulou G. (2021a). Pollution and Health Effects: A Nonparametric Approach. Computational Economics, 58, 691–714.

Halkos G., Argyropoulou G. (2021b). Modeling energy and air pollution health damaging: a two-stage DEA approach. Air Quality, Atmosphere & Health, 14, 1221–1231.

Halkos G., Argyropoulou G. (2022). Using environmental indicators in performance evaluation of sustainable development health goals. Ecological Economics, 192, 107263.

Halkos G. (1993). Sulphur Abatement Policy. Energy Policy, 21, 1035–1043, doi:10.1016/S0301-4215(06)80006-6.

Halkos G. (1994). Optimal abatement of sulphur emissions in Europe, Environmental & Resource Economics, 4(2), 127-150.

Halkos G., Polemis M. (2016). The good, the bad and the ugly? Balancing environmental and economic impacts towards efficiency. MPRA Paper 72132, University Library of Munich, Germany.

Halkos, G.; Bousinakis, D. (2017). The Effect of Stress and Dissatisfaction on Employees during Crisis. Economic Analysis and Policy, 55, 25–34,

Halkos G. & Petrou K.N. (2019). Evaluating 22 EU member states’ ‘waste culture’ using Hofstede’s and Schwartz’s cultural dimensions. International Journal of Sustainable Development & World Ecology 26 (4), 313-328.

Halkos G., Managi S., Tsilika K. (2021). Ranking countries and geographical regions in the international green bond transfer network: a computational weighted network approach. Computational Economics 58 (4), 1301-1346.

Halkos G., Aslanidis P.S.C. (2024). How Waste Crisis Altered the Common Understanding: From Fordism to Circular Economy and Sustainable Development. Circular Economy and Sustainability doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s43615-023-00337-3.

Halkos G., Tzeremes N. (2011). A conditional nonparametric analysis for measuring the efficiency of regional public healthcare delivery: An application to Greek prefectures. Health Policy, 103(1), 73–82.

Halkos G., Tzeremes N., Kourtzidis S. (2014) A unified classification of two-stage DEA models. Surveys in Operations Research and Management Science, 19(1):1–16.

Kao C, Hwang S-N (2008) Efficiency decomposition in two-stage data envelopment analysis: An application to non-life insurance companies in Taiwan. European Journal of Operational Research, 185:418–429.

Keikha-Javan S, Rostamy-Malkhalifeh M (2016) Efficiency measurement of ndea with interval data. International Journal of Mathematical Modelling & Computations, 6 (3 (SUMMER)): 199–210.

Lafortune G., Fuller G., Moreno J., Schmidt-Traub G., Kroll C. (2018). SDG Index and Dashboards. Detailed Methodological Paper.

Lee J.T., Kim H., Song H., Hong Y.C., Cho Y.S., Shin S.Y., et al. (2002). Air pollution and asthma among children in Seoul, South Korea. Epidemiology, 13(4), 481–484.

Liang L,, Cook W,, Zhu J, (2008) DEA models for two-stage processes: game approach and efficiency decomposition. Naval Research Logistics, 55: 643–653.

Liang L,, Yang F,, Cook W.D., Zhu J, (2006) DEA models for supply chain efficiency evaluation. Annals of Operations Research, 145(1):35–49.

Löthegren M., Tambour M. (1999). Bootstrapping the data envelopment analysis Malmquist productivity index. Applied Economics, 31(4), 417–425.

Meister K., Johansson C., Forsberg B. (2012). Estimated short-term effects of coarse particles on daily mortality in Stockholm, Sweden. Environmental Health Perspectives, 120(3), 431–436.

Moreira F.R., Moreira J.C. (2004). Effects of lead exposure on the human body and health implications. Revista Panamericana de Salud Publica, 15, 119–129.

OECD (2017). Measuring Distance to the SDG Targets: An Assessment of where OECD Countries Stand. OECD. http://www.oecd.org/std/OECD-Measuring-Distance-to -SDG-Targets.pdf (Accessed on 27/6/2021). O’Neill, B. C., Kriegler.

OECD (2016). The economic consequences of outdoor air pollution. Paris: Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development Publishing. https://read.oecd-ilibrary.org/environment/the-economic-consequences-of-outdoor-air-pollution_9789264257474-en#page1. Accessed 27 Dec 2019.

OECD (2014). The cost of air pollution: Health impacts of road transport. Paris: Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development Publishing. https://read.oecd-ilibrary.org/environment/the-cost-of-air-pollution_9789264210448-en#page1. Accessed 27 Dec 2019.

Ritchie H., Roser M. (2017). Air pollution. Our world in data. https://ourworldindata.org/air-pollution#note-15. Accessed 27 Dec 2019.

Sachs J., Schmidt-Traub G., Kroll C., Lafortune G., Fuller G. (2018). SDG Index and Dashboards Report 2018. Bertelsmann Stiftung and Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), New York.

Seiford L.M., Zhu J. (2002) Modeling undesirable factors in efficiency evaluation. European Journal of Operational Research, 142:16–20.

Seiford L.M., Zhu J. (1999) Profitability and marketability of the top 55 US commercial banks. Management Science, 45(9):1270–1288.

Shahroudi K., Mohammadi G., Taleghani M. (2011). Application of two stage DEA technique for efficiencies measuring of private insurance companies in Iran. International Journal of Applied Operational Research, 1(3):91–105.

Simar L., Wilson P.W. (1998). Sensitivity analysis of efficiency scores: how to bootstrap in nonparametric frontier models. Management Science, 44(1), 49–61.

Varabyova Y., Mόller J.M. (2016). The efficiency of health care production in OECD countries: A systematic review and meta-analysis of cross-country comparisons. Health Policy, 120(3), 252–263.

Wang C.H., Gopal R.D., Zionts S. (1997) Use of data envelopment analysis in assessing information technology impact on firm performance. Annals of Operations Research, 73:191–213.

WHO (2016). Dioxins and their effects on human health. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/dioxins-and-their-effects-on-human-health. Accessed 27 Dec 2019.

WHO. (2015). Economic cost of the health impact of air pollution in Europe: Clean air, health and wealth. https://www.who.int/europe/news-room/events. Accessed 27 Dec 2019.

World Health Organization (WHO)/UN Child. Fund (UNICEF), (2008). Progress on drinking-water and sanitation: Special focus on sanitation. WHO/UNICEF, Geneva, Switzerland /New York, 58 pp.

World Health Organization (WHO), (2009). Global Health Risks: Mortality and Burden of Disease Attributable to Selected Major Risks. World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland.

World Health Organization (WHO), (2002). Global defense against the infectious disease threat. In: Kindhauser, M.K. (Ed.), Emerging and Epidemic-Prone Diseases. World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland, pp. 56–103.

Zha Y, Liang L (2010) Two-stage cooperation model with input freely distributed among the stages. European Journal of Operational Research, 205(2):332–338.