Asthma link to air pollution
Air pollution is responsible for as much as 1 in 25 hospital admissions for asthma in children, a new report has shown. The report is one of the most comprehensive studies to date on how pollutants in the air affect the health of peoples’ lungs.
The study is the first official attempt to analyse the changing mix of airborne pollutants, and the amount of pollution exposure required to trigger an asthma attack.
Adrian Webster, from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, said drawing reliable links between pollution and asthma was ”fraught with complexities” and the study – published by the institute today – was intended to prompt other scientists to debate the best ways to do this.
”This type of method is crucial for estimating the health impacts of climate change and extreme events such as bushfires and dust storms,” Dr Webster said.
The conclusions about the number of asthma hospital admissions attributable to pollution were based on data collected from Melbourne in 2006. Dr Webster cautioned that while they offered a sense of air quality’s contribution to illness rates, they could not easily be extrapolated to other cities.
”Due to differences in planning history and population density, the effects of industrial pollution may be greater in some cities than others,” Dr Webster wrote in the report.
It was also difficult to account for the effect of living long term in a polluted area, while it was relatively easier to measure how a sudden surge in pollutants affected hospital admissions.
