Estimate Treatment Cost
i. Estimate hospital and clinic admissions for haze-related ailments per 10,000 population for August–October 1997. Use "haze-related ailments" as defined by each country's health service. If there is no such definition, use the Malaysian definition: upper respiratory tract infections (URTI), asthma, bronchitis, and conjunctivitis.
ii. Estimate the hospital and clinic admissions for August–October 1996 or the average hospital and clinic admissions during August–October over the previous five years.
iii. Subtract (ii) from (i) to get "excess" admissions.
iv. Adjust for affected but untreated population. The ratio of untreated to treated case varies from country to country but is in the range of 3 or 4 to 1. The ratio for each country can be found in standard health sector studies by the World Blank or the Asian Development Bank.
v. Adjust for treatment costs beyond hospital visits (mainly medicines). As per (iv), there is a standard adjustment factor that varies by country.
vi. "Shadow price", i.e., add the value of any government subsidies for treatment. Alternatively, use the price of a visit to a private clinic.
vii. If necessary, extrapolate to area outside that where the hospital data was collected; use visits per 10,000 ratio in (i).
viii. If possible, get cross-section data on affected and unaffected areas as a check on time series in (i).
xi. Get adult/child breakdown on hospital data. This will not be used in valuation of treatment costs, but in estimating lost workdays (see below).