Neglecting air pollution could cripple health care-Canada

Neglecting air pollution could cripple health care
May 19, 2010
Alberta, Canada

The neglect of air quality in our cities and the consequent cost of treating pollution-related diseases could cripple our already strained health care system.

In a health and environmentally-conscious world it is unusual to find cities, such as those in Alberta, that have not adopted a single effective clean air initiative.

Remarkably, in Alberta urban air quality monitoring does not identify the source of air pollutants and several studies have shown that residents are most concerned about industrial pollution. In reality, the most dangerous sources of pollution are closer to home - the fumes from vehicles or a neighbour’s wood burning stove or fireplace.

Indoor air quality studies in the U.S. and Europe have also identified high levels of cancer-causing compounds in homes with a wood burning stove or fireplace.

To date, the most dangerously polluted places in the province are campgrounds where smoke levels have been monitored at levels that can cause pollution-related sickness severe enough to require hospitalization or even cause death from smoke inhalation.

To create a healthier society, the Europeans have adopted a variety of measures to reduce vehicle pollution. The most significant are emission testing programs to ensure that emission-reduction features are actually working. When these tests were done in Red Deer, enough vehicles had the emission reduction features removed or neglected to double the level of vehicle pollution. This neglect impacts public health, placing an unnecessary burden on the health care system.

In Britain, deaths caused by fireplace smoke, particularly the deaths of 4,000 Londoners in only five days in 1952, were the catalyst for their smoke-free cities program. However, politicians were also aware that the cost of treating the diseases caused by wood and coal smoke would severely strain their recently-introduced “free” health care system. Paying homeowners to convert from burning dirty fuels to clean natural gas was expensive but the costs were soon recovered in terms of reduced health care costs.

In the United States, with Universal Health Care on the horizon, the cost of treating the smoke diseases has come into sharper focus. In the San Francisco Bay area alone, with only 10% of the homes burning wood, to some degree, the cost of treating the smoke diseases is estimated at one billion dollars annually. Breaking down the statistics even further, one fireplace burning wood for one evening costs the health care system $40.

There are similar concerns, around the world. Taking Christchurch, New Zealand as an example, each low emission wood or coal burning appliance is estimated to cost the health care system $2,700 annually.

It is essential to be pro-active, as once fouled by wood smoke no North American city has cleaned up the air and it will take a future generation that cares for the environment for these cities to become healthy places in which to live. Unfortunately, with researchers crying wolf over finding traces of toxic and carcinogenic chemicals almost everywhere, concerns about wood smoke, the oldest known cause of cancer, lung and heart disease, are often regarded as just another baseless health scare. Wood, like tobacco, is a cellulose based plant material and for an overview of the health implications of breathing wood smoke one only has to read the health warnings on cigarette packages, or log on to www.burningissues.com.

For a healthier urban environment that will reduce the strain on the health care system, all Alberta’s cities have ever needed to do is to borrow ideas from the world’s more environmentally conscious urban centres. Addressing pollution caused by vehicles and residential wood-burning needs to be a priority.

The worst route any city can take is to rely on Canada’s new Urban Environment Health Index, which measures only a few simple chemicals in widely separated locations........ but that is another issue.

Alan Smith

Red Deer

Alan Smith is a former member of the Urban Environment Study Group of the Environment Council of Alberta, Canada.

Credit to..Red Deer Express website
http://www.reddeerexpress.com/article/20100519/EXP0904/305199994/-1/EXP/neglecting-air-pollution-could-cripple-health-care