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There is no evidence to suggest a causal link between child mortality in Armidale and air quality, according to a University of New England academic.
A review was ordered by Armidale Regional Council after deputy mayor Dorothy Robinson asked a question about the region not meeting national air quality standards during council’s meeting in April.
The 2018 Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report revealed the Armidale region had the highest child mortality rate from 2011 to 2015 in NSW, with 26 deaths.
But, University of New England Rural Medicine head of school Geetha Ranmuthugala, who has written a discussion paper, cautioned the community on attributing the child mortality rate in Armidale with air quality.
“Overall, there is insufficient information at present to support a causal association between wood fire smoke and child mortality in Armidale. Further investigation is required to investigate this association,” she said.
“The report examines three, five-year periods, but it is only in one of these periods that Armidale appears on the list of highest child mortality rates in the state.
“In the absence of other supporting information, the fact that Armidale appears in only one of the three reporting periods does not support a causal relationship with exposure to a chronic issue such as wood fire smoke from residential heating.”
The AIHW report outlined the causes of death for Armidale, 73 per cent died of natural causes, 3.9 per cent were SIDS and 23.1 per cent were external factors.
“Additionally, with an average of just five child deaths per year during the period of high child mortality (2011-2015), estimates of child mortality at this small area level may be unstable due to the effects of random variation,” Professor Ranmuthugala said.
“Despite this, an association between exposure to residential wood fire smoke and child mortality rates may be considered if there is conclusive evidence from the scientific literature supporting such as an association,” Professor Ranmuthugala said.
“In the absence of such evidence, there is a need to recognise the role of other determinants of child mortality and examine associations with known risk factors prevalent in Armidale.”
Professor Ranmuthugala added some of these risks, though not limited to, include higher than state proportion of smokers, mothers who smoke during pregnancy, Aboriginal and Torres State Islander peoples living in Armidale, and people who delayed seeking medical help or financially unable to purchase prescribed medication.
Armidale Regional Council mayor Simon Murray said he hoped this brings comfort for parents affected by the comments.
“On behalf of ARC, I wish to express our sincerest apologies for any distress these comments may have caused and hope this report goes some way to comforting those families and parents affected by the unsubstantiated comments of some councillors,” Cr Murray said.
“There is no definitive evidence in the report to suggest a link between the child mortality rate and the use of wood fire heaters.
“As Professor Ranmuthugala has stated, there is insufficient data collected in the report to make this connection.” Cr Murray added the report used data from a huge demographic.
“We must also be mindful that the reference to Armidale is beyond the town boundaries, the map in the report indicating ‘Armidale’ stretches from near Glen Innes to south of Walcha, so it is not just the Armidale Regional Council and Armidale,” he said.
“There is no doubt the air quality in Armidale, during winter, regularly exceeds the national average for safe levels of particulate matter, especially those particles known as PM2.5 which are found in smoke from wood heater fires.
A copy of Professor Ranmuthugala’s discussion paper will be available on the Armidale Regional Council website under the tag ‘air quality’.
