The Amsterdam UMC will keep track of the extent to which patients are exposed to air pollution in their living environment in patient files. That reports RTL News. The hospital wants to better inform patients about the risks of air pollution, which can cause respiratory complaints and lung diseases.
The data on air quality in municipalities is already available, maintained by the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM). The hospital will soon compare this data with the patient’s zip code to better estimate the extent to which air pollution contributes to health complaints.
“There are sometimes patients with recurring complaints for which we think: why are we not getting these under control for him or her, despite all the medication,” says pediatrician Berber Kapitein to NRC. “Then the link to pollution data could be an indication that it may be more due to environmental factors than to genetics or biology.”
Sources
In the Netherlands, the number of children who develop asthma due to nitrogen dioxide – a substance mainly released when burning fossil fuels – is the highest in all of Europe, it was found in 2019. international research. Of the 38,000 Dutch children who developed asthma in 2015, one sixth was determined by nitrogen dioxide.
Many pediatricians regularly worry about the impact of air pollution on a patient, says Kapitein. At the same time, she says, there is often a lack of data to be able to make statements about this. “We compensate for this lack of figures by linking this air pollution data to the zip code.”
The sources that contribute to the large amounts of nitrogen dioxide in the air are numerous, but road traffic emissions are the main cause, according to Kapitein. Particularly in large cities such as Amsterdam and Rotterdam, there is “constantly a high level of exposure,” according to the pediatrician at the Amsterdam hospital.
Although the RIVM data does not trace the source of air pollution, the Amsterdam UMC hopes to be able to provide more targeted advice to patients to resolve complaints. “Think about avoiding heavy traffic, taking a different route or opening your window at the back of your house instead of along a busy road.”
The Amsterdam UMC is the first hospital in the Netherlands to keep track of air pollution data. This is already happening in London.
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