A comparison of air pollution in different socio-economic areas

Houghton, R

Abstract

Air pollution has a significant impact on human health causing around 40,000 deaths annually in the United Kingdom (RCPCH, 2016). This thesis examines the variations in Particulate Matter concentration across areas of different socio-economic status. The research assesses air pollution concentration in different areas of deprivation to determine if communities with lower socio-economic status experience higher pollutant concentrations than areas with higher socio-economic status and consists of three linked studies. The first study was conducted in Greater Manchester across three study areas of high, medium and low deprivation. Three monitoring sites within each area were selected to allow inter-site comparison and comparison between study areas. Particulate matter data was collected using a Dustmate Particle monitor and analysis was undertaken using SPSS. Each monitoring event was analysed separately using descriptive statistics. To analyse the link between socio-economic characteristics and pollution levels all data collected was combined to calculate correlation and analysis of variance. The results demonstrated slight variance in pollution levels between study areas however with no significant link found between pollution and deprivation. The second research study analysed particulate matter concentration across the North West of England using the automatic urban and rural network data, which was analysed to determine descriptive statistics such as mean, maximum and minimum. To assess the link between pollution concentration and socio-economic status all data was combined to calculate correlations. The third research study analysed background modelled data for Greater Manchester. To analyse the data ArcMap was used to assess spatial relationships between PM10 levels and IMD ranking. Road type data was used to create map the road structure in the area and pollution. These two studies demonstrated no significant link between socio-economic status and pollution levels with the AURN study showing the strongest links. Higher concentrations of pollutants were no found to be in the areas of high road traffic. This reasons for the differences found in the link between socio-economic status could be due to limited data availability. It is suggested that for future studies a standardised deprivation level is decided upon.

Citation

Houghton, R. A comparison of air pollution in different socio-economic areas. (Dissertation). University of Salford

• Thesis Type: Dissertation
• Deposit Date: Jul 8, 2020
• Publicly Available Date: Jul 8, 2020
• Award Date: Jun 15, 2020