Science News - October 6, 2004

Air pollution damages young lungs

“Current levels of air pollution have chronic adverse effects on lung development in children from the age of 10 to 18 years,” write the authors of a study published on September 9 in The New England Journal of Medicine. This is the latest finding from the 10-year, multimillion-dollar Children’s Health Study. In this work, researchers measured lung function over the course of 8 years of 1759 children from 12 schools in Southern California communities with various levels of ozone, acid vapor, nitrogen dioxide, ultrafine particulate matter, and elemental carbon in the air. By age 18, 7.9% of the kids exposed to the highest levels of particulate matter smaller than 2.5 micrometers had diminished lung function, whereas only 1.6% of the kids living in areas with cleaner air had problems. These results are believed to be broadly relevant because the pollutants studied are present in vehicle emissions worldwide. (N. Engl. J. Med. 2004, 351, 1057–1067)