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The Times 21st October 2015

Living close to an airport may raise lung disease risk

Oliver Moody

Living within six miles of a congested airport significantly raises your risk of being hospitalised with lung or heart disease, a study suggests.

Clouds of noxious carbon monoxide billowing off planes as they taxi on the runway caused dramatic spikes in illness among nearby residents on busy days, economists claimed.

An analysis of the 12 biggest airports in California found that small fluctuations in air pollution, well below the legal limits in the US and Britain, significantly increased the number of urgent heart or respiratory complaints.

Within the area 6.2 miles (10km) around the airports, where six million people live, a slight rise in carbon monoxide levels on any given day led to an extra 97 hospitalisations for lung conditions and 42 for heart disease, the study concluded.

The problem is particularly bad for people whose houses are in the way of the prevailing wind.

Nick Hewitt, professor of atmospheric chemistry at the University of Lancaster, said: “These findings have significant implications for airports such as Heathrow that are located in areas of relatively high population density and that are subject to congestion.”

Wolfram Schlenker, the Columbia University environmental economist who led the analysis, said European airports tended to be less densely congested than US ones because they kept passengers waiting longer at the departure gate. This suggests the air pollution may be less severe around airports in Britain than in California.

The paper was published last night in The Review of Economic Studies.