Browsing by Author "Fredrikson, Martta"

The main objective of this Master’s thesis is to create an overview of the thematic entity of forest, health and economics based on earlier literature. The other objective is to demonstrate how to value these benefits with a computional estimation. There is lot of research made on the health benefits of forests or green space to human and strong evidence of those benefits. In this study the aspect of physical activity was chosen because the independent recreational use of forests can usually be classified as health enhancing physical activity, and in addition there are similarities between the health benefits of natural environment and physical activity. Health benefits can be valued by various methods. Commonly used methods are based on the value of statistical life or cost of illness and lost productivity from time off work. The Health Economic Assessment Tool (HEAT) created by World Health Organization was used for the computional estimation in this study. The mechanism of HEAT is based on the value of statistical life. Furhermore a rough estimate of the value of health benefits based on cost of illness is presented. The computional estimation is based on a fictional 100 hectare forest situated nearby a city. The population living half a kilometer radius from the forest was estimated with the population density data of Helsinki. The value of health benefits for the population of 5000 working aged is remarkable: depending on the method the value can be over two million euros yearly. The value of health benefits is greater than the potential average annual earning of the forest used for wood production, yet smaller than the value of that area used for building. The economic value of health benefits of forests is considerable, especially in cities with high population density or nearby them. This study gives a scratch of the economic value of the health benefits of recreational use of forests and there is strong demand for further study on the subject. However, by taking the advantage of existing knowledge of the subject it is possible to make estimations of the value of health benefits, and those estimations should be used more often in policy making.