Asthma study cites Riverside pollution effects on youths

About six percent of all childhood asthma cases in Riverside and nine percent in Long Beach can be attributed to proximity to heavy traffic corridors, according to a University of Southern California study released Wednesday.

The study, which appeared in an online edition of the American Journal of Public Health, found that the true impact of air pollution and ship emissions on asthma has likely been long underestimated.

Although there have been previous studies on the effects of traffic proximity on asthma risk, the USC study is one of the few that estimated the number of cases associated with traffic in specific high-risk communities, according to researcher Rob McConnell, professor of preventive medicine at the Keck School of Medicine at USC.

"The traditional approach to estimating the burden of air pollution-related disease has markedly underestimated the true effect," McConnell said. "Our results indicate that there is a substantial proportion of childhood asthma that may be caused by living within 75 meters of a major road in Long Beach and Riverside."

"This results in a much larger impact of air pollution on asthma symptoms and health care than previously appreciated," he said. "This is also one of the first studies to quantify the contribution of ship emissions to the childhood asthma burden."

According to the research, about 1,600 cases of childhood asthma in Long Beach and 690 in Riverside could be linked to living within 81 yards of a major road.

McConnell noted that unlike regional air pollutants, the local traffic-related pollutants around homes and their effects are not regulated.

"The impact of roadway proximity on the overall burden of asthma-related illness is remarkable," he said. "Air pollution is a more important contributor to the burden of childhood asthma than is generally recognized, especially to more severe visits to a clinic or emergency room."

The study found that about 1,400 annual episodes of asthma-related bronchitis episodes in Long Beach – 21 percent of the total – were caused by elevated nitrogen dioxide levels due to ship emissions from the Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex.

Friday, November 6th, 2009.
Issue 45, Volume 9.