For health equity, location is important
Dolores Perales: From asthma to high school, a mom’s dream come true when she was 10 years old — the first days of life
Dolores Perales was 10 years old the first time she couldn’t take a breath and thought she was going to die. She knew it was early April, the start of the softball season, and she was playing outside. What she remembers clearly is the tightness in her chest and the rising panic. After it happened repeatedly, her mother took her to a doctor, who diagnosed her with asthma. “Ever since then I just had my inhaler,” she says. “One of my younger brothers had asthma; my cousin across the street had asthma. Many children in my classroom had asthma. “As a kid, you kind of start thinking this is something normal.”
Source: Fixing Air Pollution Could Dramatically Improve Health Disparities
How dirty is the air? Telling the story of how she learned to fly on the Detroit skyline with a blast-spewing gasoline refinery
Equally normal, as far as Perales was concerned, was a Detroit skyline hazed by the fume-spewing Marathon petroleum refinery. The Ambassador Bridge, which is the busiest crossing between the U.S. and Canada, is full of diesel- fueled trucks. Both were close to her home.
It was not until Perales began traveling with her middle school softball, volleyball and basketball teams that she realized the chemical-laced air she knew so well was not the norm for everyone. Just a short drive from her own home, Perales found streets covered in trees. But even more striking to her than the greenery was the suburban air. “It smelled different,” she says. “When I was out there, it didn’t smell bad.”
According to environmental health researcher Rima Habre, the major sources of emissions of harmful pollutants are often placed in communities that are disadvantaged as a result of discrimination.
People who feel the health impacts most keenly are those who live or work near sources of pollution, such as oil refineries, coal-burning power plants or freeways with smoke-spewing trucks. Even though numbers can swing wildly from day to day, PM 2.5 can be six to eight times higher in pollution hot spots than in nearby areas. The United States has a fairly large number of local air pollution hot spots that are inequitably distributed on basis of race and status.
In the 70 years after the 1948 smog in Donora, Pa., and the 1952 Great Smog in London, more researchers, physicians, and activists started to recognize the health risks of dirty air.
In some places smoke was considered an aesthetic problem but not a medical one. Most people were only focused on that which was clearly visible according to historian Awadhendra Sharan from Centre for the Study of Developing Societies in Delhi, India. There is a long-standing view that there is something wrong with the environment.
Air pollution endangers almost every aspect of human health. The worst threat comes from tiny particles, known as PM2.5, that are 2.5 microns or less in diameter. They can cause or increase respiratory diseases such as asthma, COPD and lung cancer. These minute particles slip through layers of lung tissue to enter blood vessels and affect major organs. They cause inflammation that touches every part of the body, including the brain, and have been linked to heart disease, neurodegenerative illnesses and even dementia. According to Michael Brauer, a health researcher at the University of British Columbia and the University of Washington, every organ system is affected by pollution.
According to the Indian government, state and municipal authorities have been tasked with finding solutions to the pollution issues that they’re dealing with through the National Clean Air Program. The effort made funds available to implement solutions, which helped local governments act on their own air pollution. The shift has been a very important one. It’s the first step in getting people involved in the project.
Policies that work in rich countries can prove challenging to implement in low- and middle-income nations. Pallavi Pant is a global health researcher with the Health Effects Institute in Boston. The demand for personal vehicles has led to the rise of imported used cars from Japan. These imported cars were designed to meet emissions-control standards for high-income countries, so they’re built using the newest catalytic converters and other pricey pollution-reducing technology. But maintaining those cars, especially locating and paying for parts, can prove difficult in poorer countries. The components have been removed completely before the cars are sold again.
But top-down approaches may still be effective, Pant says. In India, for instance, regulators have begun to enforce more stringent standards for vehicle emissions, an approach shown to motivate the auto industry to find ways to meet those standards so it can continue selling cars. The results from this strategy are not yet visible, Pant says, because it takes time for an older fleet of vehicles to be replaced by new, cleaner ones. She says they will continue to see improvements in the fleet.
Recognizing this problem has prompted some low- and middle-income countries to make changes. In order to provide electricity in rural areas, Rwanda has focused on the use of solar-powered systems. Nearly half of the country has access to electricity, thanks to solar power. India is trying to increase the amount of electricity it gets from renewable sources. In May the indian government announced plans to put off new coal-burning power plants for 5 years to focus on renewable energy “It’s not a case that places get worse and worse and never improve,” Brauer says. “We really do see improvement.”
Planting Trees: Prevention and Prevention of Environmental Health Issues in a Growing and Diverse World – A Case Study in Beijing
A way to offset the effects of pollution is to plant trees. Exposure to PM2.5 can significantly reduce blood flow to the brain, which influences stroke risk. But a study tracking more than 9,000 residents in Beijing found that living amid greenery mitigated this potential harm. Plants can also reduce the risk of heart disease.
Snakebite envenomation is one of the deadliest tropical diseases. The people with the lowest resources are more at risk of being bitten or getting the best care because they don’t have as much protection. New treatments could save lives and limbs.
Many diseases are changing due to the climate crisis. Those working outdoors in construction and agricultural fields are more at risk than other people. The illness also disproportionately affects Latino, Asian and Indigenous American people, who are more likely to contract it than white people and who often experience more severe symptoms.
Better understanding and a new approach are needed for solutions to exist. Innovative researchers are devising healthier buildings, designing clinical trials with community involvement, and monitoring the air and water to empower people to protect themselves. They are creating a movement toward a more livable and more just world.
Scientists at the University of British Columbia and the University of Washington have found that fixing air pollution can dramatically improve health in disadvantaged neighbourhoods. A total of over 3,200 people were interviewed by the researchers, who compared the health outcomes of residents from disadvantaged neighbourhoods with those living near sources of pollution like oil refineries and coal-burning power plants.