FOI Ref: FOI/2023/5062
You asked
Please supply all deaths attributable to outdoor air pollution for all ages for the 2018 to date, including and morbidities or comorbidities that were present.
We said
Thank you for your request.
We are responsible for the production of mortality statistics for England and Wales. This is driven by information collected from the medical certificate of cause of death (MCCD) at death registration. National Records Scotland (NRS) and Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) are responsible for statistics pertaining to Scotland and Northern Ireland.
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.
Unfortunately, we are unable to provide any further details about comorbidities for this individual, as this is personal information. Section 39 of the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007 (SRSA) renders it a criminal offence to disclose information held by the Statistics Board for statistical purposes that would identify an individual, including those who are deceased. As we are prohibited by law from publishing statistics in which individuals can be identified, Section 44(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) applies.
It may be more informative to consider epidemiological studies which estimate numbers or proportions of 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.