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. 2013 Jan 8:346:e8446.
doi: 10.1136/bmj.e8446.

Evaluation of interventions to reduce air pollution from biomass smoke on mortality in Launceston, Australia: retrospective analysis of daily mortality, 1994-2007

Fay H Johnston  1 , Ivan C Hanigan, Sarah B Henderson, Geoffrey G Morgan
Affiliations

Evaluation of interventions to reduce air pollution from biomass smoke on mortality in Launceston, Australia: retrospective analysis of daily mortality, 1994-2007

Fay H Johnston et al. BMJ. .

Abstract

Objective: To assess the effect of reductions in air pollution from biomass smoke on daily mortality.

Design: Age stratified time series analysis of daily mortality with Poisson regression models adjusted for the effects of temperature, humidity, day of week, respiratory epidemics, and secular mortality trends, applied to an intervention and control community.

Setting: Central Launceston, Australia, a town in which coordinated strategies were implemented to reduce pollution from wood smoke and central Hobart, a comparable city in which there were no specific air quality interventions.

Participants: 67,000 residents of central Launceston and 148,000 residents of central Hobart (at 2001 census).

Interventions: Community education campaigns, enforcement of environmental regulations, and a wood heater replacement programme to reduce ambient pollution from residential wood stoves started in the winter of 2001.

Main outcome measures: Changes in daily all cause, cardiovascular, and respiratory mortality during the 6.5 year periods before and after June 2001 in Launceston and Hobart.

Results: Mean daily wintertime concentration of PM(10) (particulate matter with particle size <10 µm diameter) fell from 44 µg/m(3) during 1994-2000 to 27 µg/m(3) during 2001-07 in Launceston. The period of improved air quality was associated with small non-significant reductions in annual mortality. In males the observed reductions in annual mortality were larger and significant for all cause (-11.4%, 95% confidence interval -19.2% to -2.9%; P=0.01), cardiovascular (-17.9%, -30.6% to -2.8%; P=0.02), and respiratory (-22.8%, -40.6% to 0.3%; P=0.05) mortality. In wintertime reductions in cardiovascular (-19.6%, -36.3% to 1.5%; P=0.06) and respiratory (-27.9%, -49.5% to 3.1%; P=0.07) mortality were of borderline significance (males and females combined). There were no significant changes in mortality in the control city of Hobart.

Conclusions: Decreased air pollution from ambient biomass smoke was associated with reduced annual mortality in males and with reduced cardiovascular and respiratory mortality during winter months.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: All authors have completed the ICMJE uniform disclosure form at www.icmje.org/coi_disclosure.pdf (available on request from the corresponding author) and declare: no support from any organisation for the submitted work; no financial relationships with any organisations that might have an interest in the submitted work in the previous three years; no other relationships or activities that could appear to have influenced the submitted work.

Figures

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Fig 1 Map of Tasmania showing location of Launceston (intervention city) and Hobart (control)
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Fig 2 Launceston, Tasmania, showing reduced visibility associated with smoke from domestic wood heaters (left) and same view on clear day (right)
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Fig 3 Air quality interventions, air quality data, and directly aged standardised mortality in Launceston, Tasmania 1991-2007
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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