FOI ref: FOI-2023-1338
You asked
I would like to know how many people have died in the whole of the UK as a direct result of car air pollution in the last 5 years.
We said
Thank you for your request.
We are responsible for the provision of mortality statistics for England and Wales. National Records Scotland (NRS) and the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) are responsible for statistics pertaining to Scotland and Northern Ireland. Should you wish to obtain this data from NRS and NISRA, they can be contacted at foi@nrscotland.gov.uk and info@nisra.gov.uk respectively.
Causes of death are certified in most cases by a doctor, who records the sequence of medical conditions and relevant events leading to, or contributing to, the death, based on the deceased's healthcare records and other available information, such as laboratory tests or post-mortem investigation. Some deaths are certified by a coroner who determines the causes of death following an inquest, based on all the available evidence. It is unusual for wider contextual factors such as exposure to pollution or air quality to be recorded among the causes of death.
One death in England and Wales in the period 2001 to 2021 had exposure to air pollution (International Classification of Diseases, tenth revision (ICD-10) code Z581) recorded on the death certificate.
Finalised data for 2022 will be published in October/November 2023 as part of the Deaths Registered Series to allow the inclusion of late registrations, which are deaths referred for Coroner investigation.
It may be more informative to consider epidemiological studies which estimate numbers or proportions of incidence and deaths which can be attributed to exposure to pollution or poor air quality. A number of reports have been published by Public Health England (now the UK Health Security Agency) on different aspects of air pollution and health. If you wish to discuss this report, please contact the UKHSA directly. Their FOI team can be reached at InformationRights@UKHSA.gov.uk.