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. 2024 Jun 15;251(Pt 2):118697.
doi: 10.1016/j.envres.2024.118697. Epub 2024 Mar 16.

Electric vehicles and health: A scoping review

Audrey F Pennington  1 , Cheryl R Cornwell  2 , Kanta Devi Sircar  3 , Maria C Mirabelli  2
Affiliations

Electric vehicles and health: A scoping review

Audrey F Pennington et al. Environ Res. .

Abstract

Background: The health impacts of the rapid transition to the use of electric vehicles are largely unexplored. We completed a scoping review to assess the state of the evidence on use of battery electric and hybrid electric vehicles and health.

Methods: We conducted a literature search of MEDLINE, Embase, Global Health, CINAHL, Scopus, and Environmental Science Collection databases for articles published January 1990 to January 2024. We included articles if they presented observed or modeled data on the association between battery electric or hybrid electric cars, trucks, or buses and health-related outcomes. We abstracted data and summarized results.

Results: Out of 897 reviewed articles, 52 met our inclusion criteria. The majority of included articles examined transitions to the use of electric vehicles (n = 49, 94%), with fewer studies examining hybrid electric vehicles (n = 11, 21%) or plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (n = 8, 15%). The most common outcomes examined were premature death (n = 41, 79%) and monetized health outcomes such as medical expenditures (n = 33, 63%). We identified only one observational study on the impact of electric vehicles on health; all other studies reported modeled data. Almost every study (n = 51, 98%) reported some evidence of a positive health impact of transitioning to electric or hybrid electric vehicles, although magnitudes of association varied. There was a paucity of information on the environmental justice implications of vehicle transitions.

Conclusions: The results of the current literature on electric vehicles and health suggest an overall positive health impact of transitioning to electric vehicles. Additional observational studies would help expand our understanding of the real-world health effects of electric vehicles. Future research focused on the environmental justice implications of vehicle fleet transitions could provide additional information about the extent to which the health benefits occur equitably across populations.

Keywords: Electric vehicles; Health; Review; Transportation.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Flow chart of study selection for scoping review
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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