Air pollutant exposure evidence review
A review of existing data on pollutant concentrations and demographic features, used to understand the strength of the evidence base on how the Scottish population is being exposed to outdoor concentrations of NO2, PM10, and PM2.5.
Appendix 2: List of Data Sources Reviewed
A2.1 A list of sources identified and reviewed to support the findings of this report.
ID 1 Accessed 15/12/2025 Environmental Standards Scotland (2022). Baseline Evidence Review: Air 2022, Environmental Standards Scotland.
ID 2 Accessed 12/12/2025 Environmental Standards Scotland (2022) Air Quality Investigation – Improvement Report, Environmental Standards Scotland, Edinburgh.
ID 3 Accessed 12/12/2025 Catalano, A. & Congreve, E. (2025). Air Pollution and Inequality in Scotland, Scottish Health Equity Research Unit.
ID 4 Accessed 12/12/2025 Miall, N., Fergie, G., & Pearce, A. (2022) Health Inequalities in Scotland: Trends in deaths, health and wellbeing, health behaviours, and health services since 2000, University of Glasgow.
ID 5 Accessed 12/12/2025 Barnes J, Walker B, Bray I, Hayes E. (2023). Review and Assessment of the Evidence on Health Impacts of Low-Level Pollution in Countries with Levels of Ambient Air Pollution Comparable to Scotland, Bristol: Air Quality Management Resource Centre (AQMRC) and Centre for Public Health and Wellbeing (CPHWB), University of the West of England for the Scottish Government.
ID 6 Accessed 12/12/2025 Environmental Standards Scotland (2024). Air Quality: Particulate Matter in Scotland – An assessment of the evidence, ambition and prospects, Environmental Standards Scotland.
ID 7 Accessed 15/12/2025 Pugsley, K. L., Stedman, J. R., Brookes, D. M., Kent, A. J., Morris, R. J., Whiting, S. L., Wareham, J. V., Gorji, S., Marshall, O., & Thomson, V., (2025). Technical report on UK supplementary modelling assessment under the air quality standards regulations 2010 for 2023 (Report Ricardo/R/3475), RicardoDEFRA, UK-Air.
ID 8 Accessed 15/12/2025 Catalano, A. & Jack, D. (2024). Scotland’s Census: Understanding changes in health and socioeconomic inequality since 2011, Scottish Health Equity Research Unit, University of Strathclyde.
ID 9 Accessed 18/12/2025 Abed Al Ahad, M., Demsar, U., Sullivan, F. & Kulu, H. (2023). Long-term exposure to air pollution and mortality in Scotland: a register-based individual-level longitudinal study, Environmental Research, 238, 117223. doi:10.1016/j.envres.2023.117223.
ID 10 Accessed 16/12/2025 Scottish Public Health Observatory (ScotPHO) (2025). Ethnic minorities: key data sources.
ID 11 Accessed 16/12/2025 Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) (n.d.) Background Mapping data for local authorities. UK-AIR.
ID 12 Accessed 16/12/2025 Scottish Government (2024) Key Household Behaviours Impacting Outdoor Air Quality: Evidence Review. Scottish Government, Edinburgh.
ID 13 Accessed 16/12/2025 Scottish Government (2023) National Planning Framework 4. Scottish Government, Edinburgh.
ID 14 Accessed 20/01/2026 Local Authority Air Quality Management Area (AQMA) Reports, various local authorities
ID 15 Accessed 18/12/2025 NAEI Air Quality Pollutant Inventory (AQPI), UK Government and Devolved Administrations
ID 16 Accessed 18/12/2025 PCM Model (Pollution Climate Mapping), UK Government and Devolved Administrations
ID 17 Scottish Air Quality Database (SAQD) monitoring, Scottish Government.
ID 18 Accessed 18/12/2025 SIMD (Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation), Scottish Government (2020).
ID 19 Accessed 20/01/2026 NRS (National Records of Scotland), Scottish Government.
ID 20 Accessed 20/01/2026 Dominski, F.H., Lorenzetti Branco, J.H., Buonanno, G., Stabile, L., Gameiro da Silva, M. & Andrade, A., 2021. Effects of air pollution on health: A mapping review of systematic reviews and meta-analyses. Environmental Research, 201, 111487.
ID 21 Accessed 12/01/2026 Lee, D., Robertson, C., Ramsay, C., Gillespie, C. & Napier, G., 2019. Estimating the health impact of air pollution in Scotland, and the resulting benefits of reducing concentrations in city centres. Spatial and Spatio-temporal Epidemiology, 29, pp.85-96.
ID 22 Accessed 12/01/2026 Huang, G., Lee, D. & Scott, M., 2015. An integrated Bayesian model for estimating the long-term health effects of air pollution by fusing modelled and measured pollution data: A case study of nitrogen dioxide concentrations in Scotland. Spatial and Spatio-temporal Epidemiology, 16, pp.100–110.
ID 23 Accessed 12/01/2026 Bertazzon, S., Johnson, M., Eccles, K.M. & Kaplan, G.G., 2015. Accounting for spatial effects in land use regression for urban air pollution modeling. Spatial and Spatio-temporal Epidemiology, 14–15, pp.9–21.
ID 24 Accessed 12/01/2026 Brunt, H., Barnes, J., Jones, S. J., Longhurst, J. W. S., Scally, G. & Hayes, E., 2017. Air pollution, deprivation and health: understanding relationships to add value to local air quality management policy and practice in Wales, UK. Journal of Public Health, 39(3), pp.485–497.
ID 25 Accessed 12/01/2026 Bailey, N., Dong, G., Minton, J. & Pryce, G. (2018). Reconsidering the Relationship between Air Pollution and Deprivation. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 15(4), 629.
ID 26 Accessed 12/01/2026 Liska, T., Heal, M.R., Lin, C., Vieno, M., Carnell, E.J., Tomlinson, S.J., Loh, M. & Reis, S. (2024) The effect of workplace mobility on air pollution exposure inequality – a case study in the Central Belt of Scotland. Environmental Research: Health, 2(2): 025006.
ID 27 Accessed 12/01/2026 Baranyi, G., Williamson, L., Feng, Z., Carnell, E., Vieno, M. & Dibben, C. (2024). Higher air pollution exposure in early life is associated with worse health among older adults: A 72‑year follow‑up study from Scotland. Health & Place, 86, 103208.
ID 28 Accessed 08/01/2026 Hector D, Gray S, Stratton S (2025) Scottish Air Quality Database and Website. Annual Report 2024. Report for Scottish Government. Ricardo Ref ED19050.
ID 29 Accessed 14/01/2026 Air Quality Expert Group. Differentials in air pollutant exposure across communities and regions in the UK.
ID 30 Accessed 14/01/2026 Eiko Nemitz et al. The contribution of indoor domestic solid fuel burning to Scotland's air pollution. 2026.
ID 31 Accessed 14/01/2026 CERC, University of Edinburgh & UKCEH. MAQS-Health modelling of Scotland. 2022 - not published, but conference presentation slides available on CERC website.
ID 32 Accessed 15/01/2026 Vieno, M., Heal, M. R., Hallsworth, S., Famulari, D., Doherty, R. M., Dore, A. J., Tang, Y. S., Braban, C. F., Leaver, D., Sutton, M. A., and Reis, S.: The role of long-range transport and domestic emissions in determining atmospheric secondary inorganic particle concentrations across the UK, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 14, 8435–8447.
ID 33 Accessed 20/01/2026 Clean Air Advisory Panel (2024) Advice Note: Development of New PM2.5 Air Quality Targets for Wales.
ID 34 Accessed 20/01/2026 Pittman J., Attree M., Louro B., Chakravarty S., Southgate J., Gutierrez A. (2025) Evidence to Support the Development of PM2.5 Target Proposals in Wales. Report for the Welsh Government. Ricardo. ED17177.
ID 35 Accessed 10/02/2026 Overview of methods to assess population exposure to ambient air pollution. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2023. Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO.
ID 36 Accessed 23/02/2026 Grey et al (2024) Evaluating disparities in air pollution as a function of ethnicity, deprivation and sectoral emissions in England. Environment International Volume 194, 109146.
ID 37 Accessed 23/02/2026 Scottish Government (2021) Cleaner Air for Scotland 2 - Towards a Better Place for Everyone.
ID 38 Accessed 23/02/2026 COMEAP (2021) Advice on health evidence relevant to setting PM2.5 targets. March 2021.
ID 39 Accessed 23/02/2026 Air Quality Consultants and the University of Edinburgh (2019) Investigation into Diffusion Tube Bias Adjustment Factors.
ID 40 Accessed 23/02/2026 Air Quality Expert Group (2023) New Opportunities for Particulate Measurements.
ID 41 Accessed 23/02/2026 Seaton M., O'Neill J., Bien B., Hood C., Jackson M.,Jackson R., Johnson K., Oades M.,Stidworthy A., Stocker J. and Carruthers D. (2022) A Multi-model Air Quality System for Health Research: Road model development and evaluation. Environmental Modelling and Software. Volume 155. 105455.
ID 42 Accessed 23/02/2026 SEPA Scottish Pollutant Release Inventory.
ID 43 Accessed 23/02/2026 European Parliament and Council, 2024. Directive (EU) 2024/2881 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2024 on ambient air quality and cleaner air for Europe (recast).Official Journal of the European Union, L series, 23 October 2024.
ID 44 Accessed 23/02/2026 Lang, Polly E., Carslaw, David C. and Moller, Sarah J. (2019) A trend analysis approach for air quality network data. Atmospheric Environment: X. 100030. ISSN: 2590-1621
ID 45 Accessed 23/02/2026 AQEG (2012) Fine Particulate Matter (PM2.5) in the United Kingdom.