Introduction

To evaluate policies, we need to understand the economic costs and benefits of interventions. We need ways to value the health impacts in monetary terms.

The research

We’re conducting a survey into how people perceive changes occurring in coastal waters and the health risks associated with these. This will consider different groups (e.g. those who swim and those who don’t) and people from different backgrounds.

We’ll use these monetary values to estimate the benefits of reducing health risks from different interventions, and compare these with the costs of those interventions.

The impact

By placing a monetary value on health impacts, we expect to make the risks associated with coastal pathogens more visible, along with the impacts of climate change on these.  

We’ll also present an economic evaluation of different interventions, which can inform policy action to reduce health risks.