Road side Kids prone to Asthma ?

[Bhola]

The recent issue of Environmental Victims are mostly Kids, whos Interest are rearely having a Loby in the Politic?




[
][
Roadside dwellings increase kids’ asthma risk[/size][/size][/size][/size] [/color] Washington: A paper to be published in the next issue of Environmental Health Perspectives has revealed that children living close to a major road/highway are more susceptible to asthma.

The research included 5,000 children between 5 to 7 years of age, and further revealed, that higher the traffic volumes on different roads, higher the rates of asthma.

According to the research, kids living within 75 meters of a major road have a 50 percent greater risk of having had asthma symptoms in the past year than children who lived more than 300 meters away.

"These findings are consistent with an emerging body of evidence that local traffic around homes and schools may be causing an increase in asthma, this is a potentially important public health problem because many children live near major roads," said Rob McConnell, lead author of the research.

"The results suggest that living in residential areas with high traffic-related pollution significantly increases the risk of childhood asthma, kids with no parental history of asthma who had long-term exposure or early-life exposure to these pollutants were among the most susceptible," said David A. Schwartz, M.D., director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS).

McConnell noted that air pollution regulations mostly focus on regional air pollutants rather than localized exposures within communities, such as living near a busy road, which may also be a major problem.

"We've taken some tentative steps to address that, for example with a law that a new school can't be built within 500 feet of a freeway. But we have to also consider whether building parks, play areas, or homes right next to a major road is a wise land use decision in terms of health," he said.

McConnell and his colleagues will soon follow up with a subgroup of children to measure pollutants in their homes and they will also look at characteristics that may make children more susceptible.