To ask the Minister of Health what recent assessment his Department has made on the (i) potential health burden; and (ii) costs, that air pollution has on the Health Service.

In May 2018, Public Health England (PHE) published a report on the estimation of costs to the NHS and social care in England due to the health impacts of air pollution. My Department has produced estimated burden costs for Northern Ireland using figures from the PHE report for England and scaling them based on population differences.

It is estimated that in 2017, the Health and Social Care (HSC) costs associated with diseases related to air pollution (PM2.5 and NO2) were around £1.5m. The overwhelming contribution is from PM2.5 (96%). Taking into account information on diseases where the evidence for an association with air pollution is currently less robust, then the costs could rise to nearly £5.4m (PM2.5 48%, NO2 52%).

Projections of future costs indicate that in the period 2017–2025, the total cost to the HSC of air pollution in Northern Ireland is likely to be in the region of £55m - £190m. The sector that will see the largest share of this expenditure will be secondary care. However the costs in all the other sectors combined is likely exceed this spend. For the period 2017-2035, the combined cost (PM2.5 and NO2) is likely to be in the region of £182m - £635m. When all diseases are included, air pollution is expected to cause 84 thousand new cases of disease in Northern Ireland between 2017 and 2035.