Families should switch off electrical devices before bed to prevent side effects from light pollution, the chief medical officer has warned.
Dame Sally Davies said the ‘impact of smartphone screen use and “blue light”’ contributed to daily pollutants that were fuelling a rise in deaths from cancer and lung and heart conditions.
‘What is so horrifying is that we are aware of the risks of tobacco and diet and give advice on it but no one is aware of pollution,’ she said.
‘I note there is increasing concern about the impact of smartphone screen use and “blue light”, upon human health.’
In her annual report, which gives recommendations to the Government on public health, Dame Sally warned a ‘daily cocktail’ of diesel fumes, noise, light pollution and household chemicals is putting Britons at risk
In her annual report, which gives recommendations to the Government on public health, Dame Sally warned a ‘daily cocktail’ of diesel fumes, noise, light pollution and household chemicals is putting Britons at risk.
She said pollution was a major public health threat.
She also admitted that the NHS was one of the country’s worst polluters due to hospital incinerators, toxic medical waste and vehicle emissions.
As many as one in 20 vehicles on the road at any one time are working for the health service including ambulances, staff cars and delivery services.
Air pollution including diesel claims an estimated 40,000 lives in the UK a year, mainly through heart and lung conditions.
But Dame Sally also warned of the risks of noise pollution from aircraft and busy roads, which has been linked to heart disease, sleeplessness and stress. Meanwhile, light pollution from buildings or streetlamps is thought to disrupt the body’s daily rhythms and may increase the risk of cancer.
Dame Sally is also concerned about the effects of indoor pollutants such as aerosols, cleaning products and dust.
Dame Sally is also concerned about the effects of indoor pollutants such as aerosols, cleaning products and dust
‘The public is exposed to a daily cocktail of pollutants,’ she said. ‘Some of these can be linked to chronic conditions like heart disease and asthma. This increases the risk for some of the most vulnerable members of our society and places a huge burden on our health service.
‘We are not measuring the health impacts of all these things. Where pollution is quite well measured for environmental reasons, we’re not linking it to health measures … we are at risk in ten, 30 or 50 years of finding out something was harming us and we didn’t know.’
She added: ‘Everybody has a role to play in cutting pollution … Some [NHS] trusts are already blazing a trail and I urge others to follow. We also urgently need to up our game and gather better information on how factors like light, noise and chemical pollution are affecting us.’
To set an example, Dame Sally wants the NHS to phase out diesel ambulances and replace them with electric ones.
Staff should be encouraged to share lifts, or cycle or walk to work, and hospitals will be urged to cut waste and use of plastics. Dame Sally has also instructed local health trusts – Clinical Commissioning Groups – to publish regular updates on air quality, to be compared with the number of patients admitted to hospital for lung conditions and heart disease.
She is particularly worried about the effects on children, who ‘can have lifelong poor health outcomes attributable in part to pollution’.
The report says: ‘Our children are affected by noise pollution from roads … our houses are washed with light pollution every night; we are exposed to chemicals in the almost invisible dust in our houses. There are no aspects of our life that do not have the potential to be impacted by pollution.’