§ Mr. DrewTo ask the Secretary of State for Health how many deaths were caused by traffic-related air pollution in the last year for which figures are available; and, of those, how many were related to(a) asthma and (b) other respiratory disease. [152543]
§ Yvette CooperThe Department's Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants (COMEAP) published a report "Quantification of the Effects of Air Pollution on Health in the United Kingdom" in 1998 that included estimates of the number of people affected by the effects of air pollution each year. One of the pollutants studied in the report was particulate matter (PM10), a major pollutant related to traffic. The report concluded that 8,100 people in 1995 were likely to have their deaths brought forward as a result of exposure to this pollutant. Levels of particles have fallen since 1995 and not all particulate matter is derived from traffic so this will be an overestimate of current effects.
The above calculations relate to deaths from all causes. COMEAP did not recommend separate calculations for different causes of death.