Abstract

That air pollution impacts on health is unarguable, but the extent to which this occurs and the impact on public health is less easy to define. Air quality standards worldwide are based on health impacts and consequently policy makers need to be sure that legislation on air quality has a measurable benefit on health. One key issue is the relative exposure to pollution from indoor sources and those outdoors – on a global scale indoor burning of solid fuels (notably wood and animal dung) is a major problem affecting more than half the world’s population. In the UK, the most important source indoors is cigarette smoke as high-lighted by the benefits of the smoking bans. However, outdoor air is the obvious target for legislation and how quantification of these impacts, and the relevance of comparing impacts to those from other sources in getting the message across is becoming increasingly important as European legislators seem to be more influenced by the industrial than the health lobby. These are interesting times in terms of air pollution and health!