As part of their updated position statement, Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) is calling for stronger action from the UK government to protect children from the health harms of air pollution.
Paediatricians at the RCPCH highlight their concerns in a newly updated position statement published on 19 September, which summarises recent scientific evidence on the child health impacts of air pollution. They call for stronger government and local authority action to tackle air pollution, focusing on combating top UK sources of two of the most harmful pollutants: PM2.5 and nitrogen dioxide.
Air pollution poses severe risks to children’s health. PM2.5, one of the most harmful air pollutants, can be breathed deep into the lungs and absorbed into the bloodstream, affecting children’s developing organs, exacerbating respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, and increasing the chance of developing long-term health conditions in adulthood.
Children are especially vulnerable to air pollution because they inhale more air than adults in proportion to their body weight, breathe closer to ground-level sources of air pollution such as vehicle exhausts, and are less able to control their exposure than adults. Exposure to air pollution doesn’t just affect physical health. It has also been linked to slower response times and decreased attentiveness school children, as well as serious mental health problems such as psychosis.
Recent studies showed that 86% of new schools being built in England are in unsafe air pollution areas, while in 2018 UNICEF found that children in around 2000 London schools and nurseries were being exposed to illegal levels of nitrogen dioxide pollution. However, a lack of monitoring around UK schools means that many more children may be exposed to harmful levels of air pollution throughout the school day.
RCPCH’s newly updated position statement summarises recent research on how indoor and outdoor air pollution impact child health and calls for bold but necessary policies to improve air quality, especially in and around schools and hospitals.
The statement highlights the following key recommendations:
- Protecting children in schools by monitoring air quality and empowering local authorities to act when pollution exceeds limits.
- Enacting a Clean Air Act (Ella’s Law) to establish a legal right to clean air across all four nations of the UK and committing to the WHO Air Quality Guidelines.
- Implementing and expanding Awaab’s Law to protect private renters from hazardous living conditions, such as damp and mould.
- Investing in sustainable transport to ensure half of urban journeys can be walked or cycled by 2030, with accessible public transport for all.
- Phasing out domestic wood-burning in urban areas while supporting rural residents and those in fuel poverty to transition to cleaner heat sources.
You can read RCPCH’s updated position statement and recommendations here.
