Study: Asthma rates high near pollution (worst offender: engine exhaust)

With the South Bronx home to miles of expressways and truck traffic from some of the busiest wholesale produce, meat and fish markets in the world, students there are twice as likely to attend a school near a highway as were children in other parts of New York City.

In 18 of the 69 days examined in the three-year period in the South Bronx study, average daily exposure to fine-particle pollution for a group of 10 children exceeded the EPA's standards, which will be set to 35 micrograms per cubic meter in December.

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Thurston said the findings of the study, which will be published in a scientific journal next year, showed that only 5 percent to 10 percent of the fine particle pollution was soot from diesel exhaust, but it was that portion that seemed to be having the worst effect on the children's asthma. He said their symptoms, such as wheezing, doubled on days when pollution from truck traffic was highest.

From 2002 to 2005, 10 children from each of four schools in the South Bronx took part in the study. They were given backpacks equipped with a battery-powered pump and air filter, along with other air quality monitoring instruments.