The key steps in cost–benefit analysis of environmental health interventions

The objective of this chapter is to provide an overview of the different steps involved in the cost–benefit analysis of environmental health interventions. This chapter helps making the process of conducting a cost–benefit analysis more manageable by dividing the analysis into seven main consecutive steps: (1) specifying the decision problem, (2) quantifying the benefits, (3) assigning monetary values to each benefit, (4) quantifying the costs of the intervention, (5) including considerations of the life span for costs and benefits and reexpressing these as present values, (6) comparing the estimated costs with the benefits, and (7) performing uncertainty analysis to assess the robustness of the study results. The remaining part of this chapter will focus on a brief overview of each step with a special focus on Step 1, which is not covered in the remaining chapters of this book.