The banning of smoky coal in Ireland has led to a reduction in the probability of chronic lung diseases in older people, a new study has found.
The study, led by the University of Limerick (UL), focused on the effects that the staggered extension of the ban had on lung health among the State’s older population.
The study consistently found that the ban reduced the incidence of lung disease among older people.
Over the last 30 years, smoky coal has been gradually banned in the State because of concerns about air quality and health.
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The most significant health damage caused by air pollution happens through chronic exposure to particulate matter, primarily resulting from the combustion of fuels for domestic heating, power generation and vehicles.
This exposure increases the risk of heart disease, stroke, lung cancer, and respiratory diseases including asthma, bronchitis, respiratory infections, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
The UL study on the ban of smoky coals tracked the health status of more than 4,000 older people who were interviewed every two years between 2009 and 2018.
“The effect of extending the ban was quite large. We calculate that extending the ban to towns with more than 15,000 inhabitants, which occurred during the 2010s, reduced the incidence of new cases of chronic lung disease by around 23 per cent,” lead author of the study, Dr Vincent O’Sullivan, associate professor of economics at UL, said.
In 2020, the ban on smoky coal was extended to towns with more than 10,000 inhabitants before being extended nationwide last year.
The UL study specifically examined chronic lung disease including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), chronic bronchitis or chronic emphysema.
It also examined data from five waves of the Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing, a large nationally representative survey containing detailed information on demographics, health status, health behaviours, housing, and socio-economic status.
The State’s usage of solid fuels including coal is high for western Europe. According to the 2022 Census, nearly nine per cent of households use solid fuels as their main source of heating. This figure in the UK is less than 2 per cent.
Dr Anne Nolan, one of the study’s co-authors, said that the “study shows that even in Ireland, which has relatively good air quality and low levels of pollution by international standards, policy measures to reduce air pollution can still have positive effects on health”.
“Indeed, increasing concern about harms at relatively low levels of exposure is reflected in new, much lower, thresholds for air pollution exposure that were published by the World Health Organisation in 2021,″ Dr Nolan said.
