The BEST-COST team behind the healthiar R package have published an article in the Journal of Open Source Software (JOSS). The publication of ‘healthiar: An R package to quantify and monetize health impacts attributable to (environmental) exposure‘ means that healthiar now:
- Complies better with open-source standards,
- Shows improved documentation,
- Can be cited using the JOSS paper.
It is possible to quantify, and therefore monetise, health impacts due to pollution exposure, such as ambient air pollution or noise, to improve our understanding of the health costs and guide policymakers in designing effective and efficient interventions. However, making these assessments can be time-consuming in terms of programming and often lack transparency in their methodology.
The open-source R package healthiar, as part of the BEST-COST project, contributes to solving these challenges by providing functions to quantify (and monetise) attributable health impacts. It offers multiple calculation pathways and options, including iteration across multiple geographical units and stratification by subgroups. Epidemiologists and public health professionals can benefit from using healthiar for health impact quantifications.
