Air Pollution
THE EFFECTS OF AIR POLLUTION Studies have shown that adults in
the nation's most polluted cities - even cities that meet EPA
air quality standards - are 15% to 17% more likely to die
prematurely than those in cities with the cleanest air (Source:
Dockery, et al., Harvard School of Public Health, 1995).
BUT WHAT ABOUT THE KIDS? It is recognized that because of their
physiology, children are at greater risk than adults are from
both short- and long-term illness from breathing noxious air.
a.. Children consume more oxygen than adults to maintain body
warmth. An infant consumes three times as much air per pound of
body weight as an adult - that means three times more pollutant
per pound of body weight! b.. Children are more likely to
breathe faster through their mouths. Breathing through the nose
filters out as much as 90% of some pollutants before they reach
the lung. c.. Children, especially those under 10, are more
sensitive to damage because their lungs are still developing.
THE RESULTS: a.. Children receive more concentrated doses of
pollutants that they are less equipped to handle than adults
are. Computer models show that children can receive three to
four times as many pollution deposits as adults. b.. In the
short term, high levels of air pollution have been linked to
higher incidence of respiratory tract infections, such as colds
and croup, and asthma - which jumped 58% among six to eleven
year olds in the 1970s. Children living in particle smog hot
spots suffer more chronic bronchitis and school absences due to
chest colds and pneumonia. c.. Research into the long-term
effects of kids' growing up under brown skies is underway and
still incomplete, but what we do know is not good. Children may
be suffering from air pollution long before the damage is
obvious. A University of Southern California Study released in
1990 compared children from Houston and Southern California. the
results: children in California's South Coast Air Basin suffered
a 10% to 15% loss in lung function compared with Houston
children. In essence, these kids' lungs are aging prematurely,
and they are running out of lung. When these kids get to be 20
to 25, the natural trend is for lung capacity and flexibility to
go down. A lower lung capacity when the downward curve begins
suggests deleterious effects on health in later years.
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