Health Outcomes

Health Outcome List:

• Not available

Environmental Agents

List of Environmental Agents:

• Brominated compounds (polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs, e.g., decaBDE))

Source of Environmental Agents:

• Flame retardants in television (TV) sets

Economic Evaluation / Methods and Source

Type:

• Cost-benefit analysis (CBA)

Cost Measures:

• Calculated incremental costs associated with an increase in fire safety via the fire cost-benefit analysis model by considering the following: cost difference between resins used for TV manufacture
• costs of lives saved
• costs associated with treatment of fire victim injuries
• societal losses and costs associated with fire victim deaths
• cost of flame retardants
• cost of recycling
• value of statistical life (VSL)
• average cost per fire
• cost for house construction
• health costs: costs associated with disposal or inclusion of products in fire

Potential Cost Measures:

• Absolute costs associated with flame or non-flame retarded products, such as: environmental or eco-toxicological costs
• costs of raw materials for production
• costs associated with use
• transport costs
• cost of fire-fighting
• cost of post-fire clean-up
• costs for replacement of destroyed or damaged equipment

Benefits Measures:

• Calculated incremental benefits associated with an increase in fire safety via the fire cost-benefit analysis model by considering the following: lives saved through the avoidance of TV fires
• avoided injuries
• avoided house fires
• avoided TV fires
• capital costs through fires averted

Potential Benefits Measures:

• Absolute benefits associated with flame or non-flame retarded products, such as: environmental or eco-toxicological benefits

Location:

• Sweden, European Union

Models Used:

• Authors developed the fire cost-benefit analysis (CBA) model (which is analogous to the fire life cycle assessment (LCA) model)

Models References:

• References cited in publication — fire life cycle assessment (LCA) model (Anderson et al., 2004)

Methods Used:

• Authors performed a cost-benefit analysis of effects associated with exposure to flame retardants in TV sets and fires. The authors — 1) developed a fire cost-benefit analysis (CBA) model; 2) applied the fire CBA model to a 2003-based case study comparing cathode ray tube television (CRT TV) sets containing flame retardants in the outer enclosure compared to those that did not; 3) tested nine scenarios for the CRT TV set application of the fire CBA model; and 4) performed several calculations to show the influence of different input parameters on the benefits of house fires saved.

Sources Used:

• Civil Contingencies Agency Incident Database (IDA) (http://ida.msb.se/ida2#page=a0087); Televisions by country, CIA World Factbook, Dec. 2003 (http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/med_tel-media-televisions); Swedish Insurance Federation (http://www.svenskforsakring.se/Huvudmeny/Fakta-Statistik/Statistics-list/); additional sources cited in publication

Economic Citation / Fundings

Citation:

• Mcnamee MS and Anderson P. Application of a cost-benefit analysis model to the use of flame retardants. Fire Technol. 2015. 51; 1.
• DOI

NIEHS Funding:

• Not available

Other Funding:

• Bromine Science and Environmental Forum (BSEF)