Home ›› 30 Dec 2021 ›› Opinion
Several studies have linked air pollution to harm to fetus in the womb. Higher particle pollution levels increase the risk of preterm birth. Pregnant women exposed to even low levels of particle pollution had higher risk for preterm birth according to a study. Preterm births occurred more frequently when particle pollution spiked, as an Australian study found, even when they controlled other risk factors. The Southern California Children’s Health study looked at the long-term effects of air pollution on children and teenagers. Tracking 1,759 children who were between ages 10 and 18 from 1993 to 2001, researchers found that those who grew up in more polluted areas face the increased risk of having reduced lung growth, which may never recover to their full capacity. The average drop in lung function was similar to the impact of growing up in a home with parents who smoked heavily. Community health studies are pointing to less obvious, but serious effects from year-round exposure to ozone, especially for children. Scientists followed 500 Yale University students and determined that living just four years in a region with high levels of ozone and related co-pollutants was associated with diminished lung function and frequent reports of respiratory symptoms. Another earlier report from the Children’s Health study of 3,300 schoolchildren in Southern California found reduced lung function in girls with asthma and boys who spent more time outdoors in areas with high levels of ozone. Air pollution is a major environmental health threat. Exposure to fine particles in both the ambient environment and in the household causes about seven million premature deaths each year.
Air pollution alone imposes enormous costs on the global economy, amounting to more than USD five trillion in total welfare losses. This report summarizes the latest scientific knowledge on the links between exposure to air pollution and adverse health effects in children. It is intended to inform and motivate individual and collective action by health care professional s to prevent damage to children’s health from exposure to air pollution. This public health crisis is receiving more attention, but one critical aspect is often overlooked: how air pollution affects children in uniquely damaging ways. Recent data released by the World Health Organization show that air pollution has a vast and terrible impact on child health and survival. Globally, 93 per cent of all children live in environments with air pollution levels above the WHO guidelines. More than one in every four deaths of children under five years of age is directly or indirectly related to environmental risks. Both ambient air pollution and household air pollution contribute to respiratory tract infections that resulted in 543 000 deaths in children under the age of 5 years in 2016. Today’s’ children are the future of our country and for ensuring their bright future they must get the opportunity to grow up as healthy individuals. But, in urban areas, because of high pollution level health of children are getting affected in many ways. Environment pollution is worse in the industrial zones where factory waste and human waste do not get cleared on a regular basis. It needs no emphasising that industrial development is the building block of a country’s economic growth and one of the integral parts of a country’s sustainable development.
Many experts are of the opinion that for a healthy generation we should give utmost attention to child health and child-friendly environment. Though children living in or around industrial areas are mainly affected by asthma, most of the parents do not get concerned about this disease at early stage. Though, children living in or around industrial areas are mainly affected by asthma, most of the parents do not get concerned about this disease at early stage. In most of the cases, parents bring their kids to doctors at the last minute. Hence, it becomes very challenging to save the lives of the children. In this regard, building concrete awareness and proper planning are expected from the masses of the people.
Moreover, most of the industries in the country do not follow the rules and regulations for reducing pollution. Most of the factories do not have proper waste management system. As sustainable development depends both on industrial growth and healthy life of the children, certain practices should be suggested through which a country can balance both in a coordinated manner. For example, if a country can strictly control establishment of factories and industries in densely populated areas, and if all the industries in the country follow the rules and regulations, we can create a healthy environment for our children.
Children face special risks from air pollution because their lungs are growing and because they are so active and breathe in a great deal of air. Just like the arms and legs, the largest portion of a child’s lungs will grow long after he or she is born. Eighty percent of their tiny air sacs develop after birth. Those sacs, called the alveoli, are where the life-sustaining transfer of oxygen to the blood takes place. The lungs and their alveoli aren’t fully grown until children become adults.
In addition, the body’s defenses that help adults fight off infections are still developing in young bodies. Children have more respiratory infections than adults, which also seems to increase their susceptibility to air pollution. Furthermore, children don’t behave like adults, and their behavior also affects their vulnerability. They are outside for longer periods and are usually more active when outdoors. Consequently, they inhale more polluted outdoor air than adults typically do. Studies have shown air pollution is a major risk factor for respiratory infection the leading cause of death among children under five but bad air’s specific impacts on developing bodies have remained somewhat of a mystery. A Stanford-led study reveals a link between tiny airborne particles and child health in South Asia, a region beset with air pollution and more than 40 percent of global pneumonia cases. The analysis, published in Environmental Pollution, estimates the effect of increased particulate on child pneumonia hospitalizations is about twice as much as previously thought, and indicates a particular industry may play an outsized role in the problem. The findings could help public health officials and policymakers better target emissions reduction programs to improve child health. Everybody wants to protect kids’ health. Now, we have evidence of a clear health benefit to children from reducing ambient PM2.5 emissions in Dhaka. For many of the 21 million residents of Dhaka, Bangladesh the study’s focus area air pollution is an all-too-regular part of life, especially in winter, when coal-burning brick kilns around the city operate. Of special concern is PM2.5, airborne particles 2.5 micrometers wide or smaller.
Among studies that have, most focused on the indoor environment, where the use of biomass-burning cookstoves has been associated with child respiratory infection. Specifying the impact of industry-generated air pollution on child health provides compelling evidence to support interventions to reduce pollution, said study senior author Stephen Luby, a professor of infectious diseases at Stanford University. This is often more salient to politicians than the marginal contribution of emissions to global climate change. Sherris, Luby and their colleagues analyzed long- term PM2.5 monitoring data alongside community health surveillance of respiratory infections from the Atomic Energy Centre, Dhaka, and the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh. They found pneumonia incidence among children under 5 increased by 3.2 percent for every PM2.5 increase of 10 micrograms per cubic meter of air a standard measure in air pollution analysis. The mean PM2.5 level in Dhaka was on average over three times higher than the World Health Organization standard. The association between air pollution and child pneumonia suggests that air pollution is a major contributor to the leading cause of child death in Bangladesh and across South Asia. That difference equates to more than 200,000 additional child pneumonia cases in Bangladesh each year, and nearly two million additional cases across South Asia. The increase is also approximately double similar prior estimates of pneumonia hospitalizations associated with increased PM2.5 and about 10 times more than such estimates for outpatient visits. The difference from previous findings may reflect the young age of the study population most children in the study were two or younger the source composition of particulate matter in Dhaka, And the fact that the study included nearly all community infection cases, rather than just focusing on cases that made it to clinics and hospitals. Prior studies by researchers at the Atomic Energy Centre, Dhaka found that biomass burning contributed the most to outdoor PM2.5 levels, followed by brick kiln emissions and soil dust. However, on days when brick kilns contributed a heavier than-usual amount of PM2.5 to the mix of bad air, the link between PM2.5 and child pneumonia was stronger. The findings are among the first evidence that communities and policymakers can point to that suggests a measurable impact of brick kilns on child health. Considering 9 out of 10 people live in areas with air pollution exceeding World Health Organization guidelines, further investigation into whether particles from brick kilns and other sources have different health impacts could inform health and environmental interventions around the world.
The writer is an academic based in the UK raihan567@yahoo.com
