Estimating the health economic benefits of cycling

This paper examines the health and economic benefits from the construction of a new segregated cycleway in Ireland. The health economic benefits were estimated using the World Health Organisation's (WHO) Health Economic Assessment Tool (HEAT). This tool can be used to calculate the health economic benefits from an intervention (such as construction of a new cycling facility). The HEAT tool also offers research a transparent, coherent and standardized method of evaluating the health economic benefits of cycling investments. The data used for this tool was retrieved from a survey that was undertaken between December 2012 and January 2013 in a study area near Dublin, Ireland. In total, there were 845 responses to this survey. The results show that, if constructed, the cycleway would yield significant health and economic benefits.