There is currently no economic evaluation of walking.
WHO has recently published guidance on including health effects in economic appraisals of transport interventions43. This was designed primarily to help transport economists estimate the mortality (and therefore economic) benefits of interventions that increased walking and cycling (such as new footpaths, policies or programmes). The rationale for this work is that 35% of all energy demand is from transport and 80% of this is in road transport. The transport sector is projected to be responsible for 90% of the increase in CO2 emissions until 2010.
The WHO guidance covered walking and cycling but the subsequent Excel model focused only on cycling. WHO is now proposing to extend this model to include walking to provide a practical tool that can be used at local, national and international level to make the case for walking.
This represents an opportunity to strengthen the approach taken to provide an economic appraisal and provide a strong, evidence-based arguments to advocate walking to key policy-makers.
WHO has recently published guidance on including health effects in economic appraisals of transport interventions43. This was designed primarily to help transport economists estimate the mortality (and therefore economic) benefits of interventions that increased walking and cycling (such as new footpaths, policies or programmes). The rationale for this work is that 35% of all energy demand is from transport and 80% of this is in road transport. The transport sector is projected to be responsible for 90% of the increase in CO2 emissions until 2010.
The WHO guidance covered walking and cycling but the subsequent Excel model focused only on cycling. WHO is now proposing to extend this model to include walking to provide a practical tool that can be used at local, national and international level to make the case for walking.
This represents an opportunity to strengthen the approach taken to provide an economic appraisal and provide a strong, evidence-based arguments to advocate walking to key policy-makers.