Don McCubbin and Aaron Hallberg Receive Abt Associates Daniel Bell Award for Their Work on BenMAP: Environmental Benefits Mapping and Analysis Program

Aaron Hallberg and Don McCubbin

BenMAP is a computer program for estimating the impacts and benefits of changes in air pollution.  It illustrates the risk to people in the United States of anthropogenic (man-made) particulate matter less than 2.5 microns in diameter.  It is also a database for the United States that has historical data on air emissions and on pollution emissions, population data, and impact estimates taken from literature on the impacts of changes from pollution levels.  It includes other data needed to conduct analyses, including air quality monitoring data, baseline rates for a variety of health effects, population data from the 1990 and 2000 censuses, and population projections for future years.  It also allows users to easily add their own data for all these categories.  BenMAP was created for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to support the development of national air quality regulations in the U.S.  While the database is U.S. specific, the software is applicable for any country, and other countries are now using it.

As a policy exploration tool, BenMAP allows users to explore a multitude of scenarios, relatively easily and on their own.  BenMAP also allows users to transparently and explicitly understand each step involved in making these estimates.  This provides the basis for users to understand where improvement could occur.

The software can be used to:

• Compare benefits across regulatory options
• Estimate health impacts and costs of existing air pollution levels
• Estimate health benefits of alternative ambient air quality standards
• Perform sensitivity analyses of health or valuation functions, as well as other inputs

Scientists, policy analysts and decision makers have found BenMAP to be a useful tool.  It serves as a Geographic Information System, allowing users to create, utilize and visualize maps of air pollution, population, incidence rates, incidence rate changes, economic valuations and other types of data.  Advanced users can also explore a wide range of options, such as using the map-querying features, exploring the impacts of different health impacts and valuation functions, and using a variety of pooling methods.

The current version of BenMAP for the United States is available at no charge at http://www.epa.gov/ttn/ecas/benmapdownload.html.  BenMAP 2.2 U.S. should be available for download within the next few months.  The international version of BenMAP can be found at http://www.epa.gov/ttn/ecas/benmap2download.html.

Abt Associates, a private, employee-owned company, applies scientific research and technical assistance expertise to a wide range of social, economic and technological policy issues; international development; clinical trials and registries; and complex business problems.  Founded in 1965, Abt Associates provides services to U.S. federal, state and local governments; foreign governments; international organizations; foundations; and business and industry.  Its staff of over 1,000 is located in Cambridge, Massachusetts; Bethesda, Maryland; Chicago, Illinois; and in Africa, Asia, Central Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East.

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