Nitrogen Dioxide: Health Hazards

(asked on 20th June 2022) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of the impact of nitrogen dioxide levels on people's health.


Answered by
Maggie Throup Portrait
Maggie Throup
This question was answered on 30th June 2022

In 2018, the Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants assessed the mortality burden of long-term exposure to air pollution in the United Kingdom, based on studies reporting associations of mortality risk with fine particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide. It was estimated that for a one microgram per cubic metre reduction in nitrogen dioxide, approximately 420,000 to 903,000 life years could be saved in the UK in the next 106 years, which is associated with an increase in life expectancy at birth of approximately two to five days.

The UK Health Security Agency published a tool to estimate the potential health burden and costs to the National Health Service and social care system arising due to air pollution. In England, an estimated 1,140,018 new cases of disease attributable to nitrogen dioxide is predicted by 2035, equivalent to 1,933 new cases of disease per 100,000 population between 2017 and 2035.

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