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 Printable version |
Relevance of life cycle analysis (LCA) for assessing health impacts: Comparison with quantitative health risk assessments (QHRA) |
Environnement, Risques & Santé. Volume 7, Number 4, 265-77, juillet-août 2008, Article original
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 Résumé
Article gratuit
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Author(s) : Magali Boize, Anne-laure Borie, Anne Landrin, Marion Papadopoulo, Denis Le Boulch, Romain Richard |
Summary : Introduction: Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) is a global method for assessing the environmental burdens (greenhouse effect, acidification, resource depletion, etc.) associated with a product or activity over its entire life cycle. Today LCA methods for environmental impact assessment are being extended to the evaluation of the human health effects of these products and activities. These results, however, are very uncertain in view of the scale of evaluation – over the entire life cycle of the system – and the many assumptions and uncertainties associated with it. The aim of this article is to determine the validity and limitations of LCA as applied to health impact (health damage, in LCA terminology) assessment by Impact 2002+, the most recent LCA method. Methods: LCA of health will be compared to the quantitative health risk assessment (QHRA), a validated and widely used assessment tool. After a comparison of the nature of both methodologies, their differences will be illustrated by a case study of coal power plants in France. Results: Despite their similar structures, LCA and QHRA often produce divergent results and differ in many ways, including ease of updating data (epidemiological, toxicological, and exposure), number of substances considered, population characteristics and the space-time scale. The case study also highlighted the risks inherent in the practice of LCA, including the double-counting of substances and the importance of the reliability of databases. Other weaknesses are more specific to Impact 2002+. They include a lack of consistency and transparency in the development of certain effect factors, which limits their scientific relevance. Conclusion: LCA appears to be a tool complementary to QHRA that can be used for pre-diagnoses or to assess pollution transfers. LCA findings, however, must be applied cautiously (that is, interpreted by an expert) for they cannot in any case be considered comparable to health risk scores. |
Keywords : health risks assessment (QHRA), life cycle analysis (LCA), toxicology |
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