Back in May the Singleton Shire Healthy Environment Group detailed its concerns in a letter to the NSW chief health officer Dr Kerry Chant.

The department subsequently reviewed health data provided by GPs in the Upper Hunter towns of Singleton, Muswellbrook and Denman covering 1998-2010 and compared it to other GP data from non-metropolitan areas in NSW.

The analysis of the Bettering the Evaluation and Care of Health data was also part of the state government’s investigations into potential health impacts from coal mining in the Upper Hunter.

But the BEACH data report did not find any significant issues.

On the findings revealed this month, Chant said the report shows that Upper Hunter residents should have general confidence that its illness rates are similar to comparable areas of the state.

“While there appeared to be slightly higher rates of management for asthma and other respiratory problems, the report could not rule out the possibility that these may have been chance findings,” he said.

Chant added that the air pollution expert advisory panel established earlier this year will provide advice on further work to be done.

In the conclusion of the BEACH report, the health department said the rate of management of respiratory problems overall was lower in the Hunter region during the surveyed periods.

“However, rates of management of asthma, sinusitis, tonsillitis, and acute otitis media were higher in the Hunter region but the differences were not statistically significant,” the department concluded.

“Similarly, bronchodilators and asthma preventives were prescribed at higher rates in the medication subgroup analysis but these differences were also not statistically significant.

“These findings are consistent with emergency department presentation and hospital admission data for this region which noted higher rates for asthma and respiratory disease overall.

“The comparison of rates in 1998-2004 with those in 2005-2010 is also consistent with this picture, with respiratory chapter problems tending to be higher in the Hunter region but lower in the rest of non-metropolitan NSW.”

Despite the findings, the SSHEG is campaigning for increased Upper Hunter dust monitoring of particulate matter of 2.5 micrometres or less.

SSHEG spokesman John Drinan told the ABC the health department is considering “campaign testing” where they take monitors into Upper Hunter areas for “maybe a month at a time”.

“They will not only look at things like PM2.5s but some of the smaller particles as well and look at some of the chemicals attached to the dust,” he said according to the report.

The BEACH data also included cancer rates, with the televised Four Corners report earlier this year covering a potential cancer cluster in Singleton.