Policy briefing: The health effects of long-term exposure to air pollution - New evidence from linked administrative data in Northern Ireland

This policy brief explores the detrimental health effects of long-term exposure to outdoor air pollution in Northern Ireland. It draws on existing research together with our own research using linked administrative data from a variety of sources.

Air pollution affects people throughout their lifetimes. Our research spans in utero exposures and infant outcomes, such as birth weight, through to adult exposures and outcomes, such as premature mortality and a wide range of long-term health conditions. This research and policy brief mainly considers fine particulate matter pollution (PM_2.5), although we have also estimated health effects from exposure to nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) and other pollutants.

This body of research uses statistical modelling to isolate the impacts of differences in pollution exposures from other differences between those exposed to higher or lower levels of pollution – for example, in terms of demography, socio-economic characteristics, and other geographical and time-related contextual factors.

This policy brief provides a brief outline of the current context, the key messages from research, the key remaining gaps in our understanding, and the implications for clean air policy in Northern Ireland.  

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Recommendations for policy and practice

In his 2022 Chief Medical Officer’s Annual Report (for England), Professor Chris Whitty set out numerous policy recommendations to reduce air pollution, covering areas such as transport, planning, industry, agriculture and domestic heating. These include measures such as speeding up the electrification of light vehicles and public transport, measures to reduce air pollution near schools and healthcare settings, encouraging active travel, improving the precision of the application of slurry to soil and the covering of slurry-stores, and training healthcare staff in the health effects of air pollution and how they can be minimised. Many of these recommendations, and many of the other steps already taken elsewhere in the UK and Ireland, could be adopted here in Northern Ireland if given sufficient political will.

But without an overarching, dynamic and ambitious Clean Air Strategy for Northern Ireland, progress on tackling air pollution and its harmful effects is likely to be slow. We therefore limit our recommendations for policy and practice to three broad points:

• A Clean Air Strategy for Northern Ireland should be introduced as a matter of urgency.
• This Clean Air Strategy should commit to introducing legally binding targets for particulate matter and other damaging pollutants based on 2021 WHO guidelines. These should be introduced over a timeframe to be determined by a detailed evaluation undertaken within the first 1-2 years of the Strategy period.
• Improved monitoring and modelling of air pollution in Northern Ireland is needed, including of the constituents (speciation) of particulate matter, along with further research on its consequences for both health and the regional economy.

We recognise that Northern Ireland faces some particular challenges in this policy area, including the widespread use of (more polluting) oil-fired heating and disproportionate reliance on solid fuel heating compared to other parts of the UK. But these challenges can also be treated as opportunities, and as our research clearly demonstrates, this is too important a matter to keep kicking down the road.