The Origins of the Value of Statistical Life

Dr Richard Bruns is a Senior Scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, and before that was a Senior Economist at the US Food and Drug Administration (the FDA).

In this episode we talk about the importance of indoor air quality (IAQ), and how to improve it. Including:

• Estimating the DALY cost of unclean indoor air from pathogens and particulate matter
• How much pandemic risk could be reduced from improving IAQ?
• How economists convert health losses into dollar figures — and how not to put a price on life
• Key interventions to improve IAQ
• Air filtration
• Germicidal UV light (especially Far-UVC light)
  • Barriers to adoption, including UV smog and empirical studies needed most
• National and state-level policy changes to get these interventions adopted widely

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