Anotace:
Protecting the environment and maintaining the EU’s competitiveness must be inextricably linked. From this perspective, the scope of present article may be seen as quite timely. Air pollution is the main environmental risk factor contributing to deterioration of the health of the population, and consequently influences the economic development of the state. The usage of hard fuels for the heating of local dwellings is one of the most important sources of local air pollution. The aim of this paper is to identify the relationship between the pollution caused by heating and the health of the population. The health status of the population was assessed using the potential years of life lost per 100,000 inhabitants. Data on the energy sources used for heating were taken from a survey of all dwellings in the Slovak Republic from the 2011 census of inhabitants, homes and apartments. To create clusters of similar municipalities in terms of the variables considered, we used the fuzzy cluster analysis for individual size-standard groups of municipalities. The map view of the fuzzy cluster analysis results confirmed the division of the Slovak Republic into two regions – the north, which showed more favorable results and the south, which showed negative findings. The membership function values of the first cluster indicate a significant positive spatial autocorrelation as measured by Moran’s coefficient. A local Moran cluster map identified the areas of interest investigated below.