Air pollution and hospital admissions: an ARMAX modelling approach

Using daily data this paper analyses the time-series relationship between hospital admissions and air pollution in London. In doing so it addresses an important issue not dealt with in the existing empirical literature: Are hospital admissions truly additional or merely advanced by air pollution? If it could be shown that the hospital admissions are only advanced by air pollution rather than additional then it would be incorrect to attribute the cost to air pollution. The evidence presented indicates that a 1 percent reduction in the currently prevailing levels of PM10 in London would in the long-run result in a statistically significant 0.14 percent reduction in the number of respiratory hospital admissions. By contrast one cannot reject the hypothesis that cardiovascular hospital admissions are simply brought forward and accordingly their cost should not be attributed to air pollution.