City study reveals risks of air pollution to children

ELEVATED levels of air pollution cause more children to be admitted to hospital with respiratory problems, a new study has found.

Professor Jill Belch, from Dundee University’s School of Medicine, says that youngsters are sustaining irreparable damage to their lungs due to the inhalation of harmful particulates emitted by vehicles.

She has advocated the expansion of Low Emission Zones (LEZs) throughout the UK as a means of reducing the levels of nitrogen oxides in urban areas following the findings.

The study showed spikes in hospital admissions in under-16s for respiratory problems following periods of high air pollution, occurring at levels which did not affect adult admissions.

Professor Belch said: “Children are so much more susceptible to air pollution as their cells are dividing as they grow, and thus are more easily damaged by the toxins, never to recover.

“NO2 is a chemical that inflames the lungs and produces sticky mucus, which congests the lungs causing infections a few days later – around six or seven days – which means that parents may not often associate a respiratory problem with air pollution.

“What is especially worrying is that these admissions occur at pollution levels which leave adults unaffected, thus stressing the vulnerability of this group.”

Using publicly available records from between 2004 and 2017, Professor Belch and colleagues from the Tayside Pollution Research Programme (TPRP) cross-referenced data on almost 35,000 admissions into Dundee’s Ninewells Hospital with the average daily nitric oxide level recorded from local air monitoring sites.

The results showed that respiratory admissions in children were associated with cumulative 14-day exposure to NOx, NO2 and NO, particularly for acute respiratory infections.

The full findings have been published in the journal Aerosol and Air Quality Research.