Delayed aeroplanes linked to hospitalisations

Wednesday October 21st, 2015

Living close to an airport may carry more health risks than previously believed, researchers claimed today.

Researchers led by Associate Professor Wolfram Schlenker of Columbia University, New York, USA, examined the effects of exposure to daily air pollution, in particular carbon monoxide, on the health of people living near the 12 largest airports in California.

"These airports are some of the largest sources of air pollution in the US, and they experience large changes in daily air pollution emissions depending on the amount of time planes spend idling on the tarmac," the team writes in the Review of Economic Studies.

Excess airplane idling is due to network delays originating in the Eastern US, they explain. The extent of this aeroplane taxi time was compared against hospitalisation rates for asthma, respiratory, and heart-related emergency admissions among the six million people living within 10km (6.2 miles) of the airports.

This showed that a rise in daily pollution levels is linked to additional hospitalisations for these conditions.

"These health effects occur at levels of carbon monoxide exposure far below existing Environmental Protection Agency mandates, and our results suggest there may be sizable morbidity benefits from lowering the existing carbon monoxide standard," they conclude.

Dr Schlenker added: "We looked to identify the ways in which daily variation in air pollution affects population health, as well as trying to estimate the effect of multiple pollutants simultaneously, as it has been traditionally difficult to decipher which pollutant is responsible for which adverse health condition.

"We find that as airports in the Eastern United States become congested, so do California airports, which in turn increase local air pollution surrounding these airports and increases admittances to hospitals."

Schlenker, W. and Walker, E. R. Airports, Air Pollution, and Contemporaneous Health. The Review of Economic Studies 21 October 2015 doi: 10.1093/restud/rdv043

Tags: North America | Respiratory | Traveller Health

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