Children in Southern California breathing easier, study says
Source: AP-Excite
By ALICIA CHANG
LOS ANGELES (AP) Smog-covered mountains, gritty sidewalks, smelly fumes from traffic-choked freeways. The Los Angeles area was a tough place to breathe several decades ago. Now a study shows how much that has changed, especially for the region's youngest residents.
Children in recent years breathed cleaner air and had stronger lungs compared to those who were studied two decades earlier, researchers found. The improved health coincided with drastic reductions in pollution in the Los Angeles basin and surrounding areas as air quality regulators cracked down on emissions from tailpipes and smokestacks.
While the research focused on Southern California, the results suggest that other cities with dirty air may see a health boost with a cleanup effort.
Since pollutants such as particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide tend to be higher in cities, reducing "those pollutants should lead to improved health for children living in any urban environment," said lead researcher Jim Gauderman, a professor of preventive medicine at the University of Southern California's Keck School of Medicine.
FULL story at link.
FILE - This June 28, 1979 file photo shows a double-trailer flammable truck driving along the Santa Ana Freeway with a skyline of Los Angeles as a backdrop from East Los Angeles. A study appearing in the Thursday, March 5, 2015, issue of the New England Journal of Medicine that children in recent years breathed cleaner air and had stronger lungs compared to those who were studied two decades earlier, researchers found. (AP Photo/Wally Fong, File)
Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20150304/us-med--california_air_pollution-301e5799fe.html
ozone82
(91 posts)1947.... [link:|
SunSeeker
(51,574 posts)jtuck004
(15,882 posts)whether you want to or not.
Meanwhile, in China, they are wearing masks to build the crap we, and now others, buy.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/23/world/asia/pollution-is-radically-changing-childhood-in-chinas-cities.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Piedras
(247 posts)In the early 60's we'd visit my grandparents and great aunt who all lived in the Los Angeles area several times a year. I remember coughing and my eyes watering when we entered the LA area's smoggy grey skies after driving up the coast from San Diego. You could see, smell and taste the air pollution back then.
SunSeeker
(51,574 posts)True Blue Door
(2,969 posts)The air still sometimes sucks on a visual basis, for like photography and such, but in terms of breathing there's rarely any problems except when there's a wildfire upwind.
hunter
(38,317 posts)It's possible the smog is one of the things that messed up my lungs too, not to mention people smoking everywhere...