Living close to an airport increases risk of respiratory problems, study finds

Living within 10km of an airport significantly raises your risk of being hospitalised for lung or heart conditions, researchers say.

In the United States, researchers from Columbia University and the University of California examined hospital admission rates for various conditions and compared them with air pollution readings in different regions. 

They found that a small increase in daily pollution levels equated to 17% more admissions for asthma, 17% more for respiratory problems, and 9% more for heart-related problems. 

This meant extra costs of around £350,000 a day for respiratory and heart-related hospital admissions for people living within 10km of one of the 12 largest airports in California.

The researchers compared this with regions near airports in the eastern United States to ensure that ‘local factors’ in California were not causing extra pollution.

Research co-lead Wolfram Schlenker said: ‘These health effects occur at levels of carbon monoxide exposure far below existing Environmental Protection Agency mandates, and our results suggest there may be sizeable morbidity benefits from lowering the existing carbon monoxide standard.’ 

Read the study here.