Air Pollution

(asked on 13th September 2018) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what research his Department has (a) commissioned and (b) conducted on the health effects of PM (i) 2.5; (ii) 1 and (iii) 0.1.


Answered by
Caroline Dinenage Portrait
Caroline Dinenage
This question was answered on 11th October 2018

The Department funds research mainly through the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) and this includes research on the impact of air pollution. Research commissioned and their findings are published by the NIHR at the following link:

https://www.journalslibrary.nihr.ac.uk/programmes/

The Department also commissions Public Health England (PHE) and its expert Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollution (COMEAP) to review and conduct research on air pollution. Research findings can be found at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/comeap-reports

Most recently COMEAP conducted research and analysis to quantify the mortality associated with long-term average concentrations of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) in the United Kingdom. A statement updating earlier advice on was issued on 22 August 2018 at the following link:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/734813/COMEAP_PM_2.5_statement.pdf/

Since 2014, the Department has funded at a cost of £4.4 million, the NIHR Health Protection Research Unit (HPRU) on Health Impact of Environmental Hazards, a partnership between PHE and King’s College to conduct a large programme of research on the health impact of various pollutants including PM2.5. A list of research can be found at the following link:

http://hieh.hpru.nihr.ac.uk/

Key ongoing research projects are: a study to optimize the assessment of health impacts of air pollutants including PM2.5; research on the neurocognitive and behavioral impacts of traffic derived pollutants including PM2.5 in children as part of a larger study looking at cognition, adolescence and mobile phones and research on the health impacts of nanoparticles.

The Department also funds at a cost £4.2 million, the NIHR HPRU in Environmental Change and Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, to conduct research on air pollution and health in relation to climate change. Further details can be found at the following link:

http://www.hpru-ech.nihr.ac.uk/

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