The population exposure to PM

2.5 and PM10 in ambient air for the year 2005 has been quantified (annual

and daily mean concentrations) and the health and associated economic consequences have been

calculated based on these results. The PM

10 urban background concentrations are found to be rather

low compared to the environmental standard for the annual mean (40 μg/m

3) in most of the country.

However, in some parts, mainly in southern Sweden, the concentrations were of the same magnitude as

the environmental objective (20 μg/m

3 as an annual mean) for the year 2010. The majority of people,

90%, were exposed to annual mean concentrations of PM

10 less than 20 μg/m3. Less than 1% of the

Swedish inhabitants experienced exposure levels of PM

10 above 25 μg/m3. The urban background

concentrations of PM

2.5 were in the same order of magnitude as the environmental objective (12 μg/m3

as an annual mean for the year 2010) in quite a large part of the country. About 50% of the population

was exposed to PM

2.5 annual mean concentrations less than 10 μg/m3, while less than 2% experienced

levels above 15 μg/m

3.

Using a cut off at 5 μg/m

3 of PM10 as the annual mean (roughly excluding natural PM) and source

specific ER-functions, we estimate approximately 3 400 premature deaths per year. Together with

1 300 - 1 400 new cases of chronic bronchitis, around 1 400 hospital admissions and some 4.5-5 million

RADs, the societal cost for health impacts is estimated at approximately 26 billion SEK per year. For

PM

2.5 we estimate somewhat lower numbers, approximately 3 100 premature deaths per year.

The results suggest that the health effects related to high annual mean levels of PM can be valued to

annual socio-economic costs (welfare losses) of ~26 billion Swedish crowns (SEK) during 2005.

Approximately 1.4 of these 26 billion SEK consist of productivity losses for society. Furthermore, the

amount of working and studying days lost constitutes some ~0.1% of the total amount of working and

studying days in Sweden during 2005.