To ask the Minister of Finance how many people have died prematurely as a result of air pollution over the last ten years; and how this compares to neighbouring jurisdictions.

Deaths are registered with the General Register Office and are classified using the International Classification of Diseases (ICD10). The ICD10 codes relating to air Pollution are ‘Z58.1’ and ‘Z57.3’.

Since 2010, there have been no deaths registered that contain these codes. As an additional check, a keyword search was carried out on the cause of death text fields. The term ‘air pollution’ yielded no results. Assessing the association of air pollution in relation to mortality would require an in-depth research study. The Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) is currently scoping out a research proposal to undertake this research using the Northern Ireland Mortality Study (NIMS).

For information, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) recently published the results of a study looking at the link between exposure to air pollution and the increased risk of dying from Covid-19. Also, a ‘Data Insights’ document produced by the Administrative Data Research Centre Northern Ireland titled ‘the effect of exposure to air pollution on health and mortality’ was published in April 2020.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/environmentalaccounts/articles/doesexposuretoairpollutionincreasetheriskofdyingfromthecoronaviruscovid19/2020-08-13

https://www.adruk.org/fileadmin/uploads/adruk/Documents/The_effect_of_exposure_to_air_pollution_on_health_and_mortality.pdf