Research has shown that air pollutants in the form of respiratory toxicants (such as some pesticides and solvents) can pose a significant health risk to children. The reason? Children are at greater risk than adults from air pollutants inhaled, as they have a higher respiratory rate.
THE’Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) completed a nationwide study to evaluate the Estimated risks of noncancerous exposure of public school students to respiratory air toxics.
The analysis examined how disability status, race and ethnicity related to risk of exposure in more than 88,000 public schools. The results of the research were presented in December at the annual meeting of the Society for Risk Analysis in Austin, Texas.
The study
The statistical analysis combined the publicly available sociodemographic data for each school with the respiratory risk indices deriving from theEPA Air Toxics Screening Assessment of 2018.
Each school was ranked according to its respiratory risk index (HI), or the sum of the risk quotients for 42 different respiratory air toxics. It was found that the higher the HI, the greater the risk of potential adverse health effects. The top 5% of schools were selected as “highest exposure risk schools”.
The analysis compared the percentage of children with disabilities in these schools at higher risk of exposure to that in the rest of the schools, and made a similar comparison based on the racial and ethnic composition of the students; here’s irresearch results:
Going forward, the researchers plan to conduct a similar analysis using the data EPA AirToxScreen of 2020, and examine additional sociodemographic variables including poverty and urbanity.
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