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Objective To assess the effect of reductions in air pollution from biomass smoke on daily mortality.

Design Age stratified time series analysis of daily mortality with Poisson regression models adjusted for the effects of temperature, humidity, day of week, respiratory epidemics, and secular mortality trends, applied to an intervention and control community.

Setting Central Launceston, Australia, a town in which coordinated strategies were implemented to reduce pollution from wood smoke and central Hobart, a comparable city in which there were no specific air quality interventions.

Participants 67 000 residents of central Launceston and 148 000 residents of central Hobart (at 2001 census).

Interventions Community education campaigns, enforcement of environmental regulations, and a wood heater replacement programme to reduce ambient pollution from residential wood stoves started in the winter of 2001.

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