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Living, working near busy roadways carries significant
health risk
Roadways Emissions Studies
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency: $10.37M
Identifying and learning to deal with the sources
of traffic pollution is an increasing priority in the Los Angeles
Basin, with implications
for pollution studies across the nation. Now scientists from UCLA’s
Southern California Particle Center and Supersite are showing that
people living, working or going to school near busy roadways are
at significant risk for respiratory, neurological, immunological
and developmental ailments.
Advances in geographic information systems and technologies
for detecting aerosol concentrations have given investigators means
to clarify the relationship between
exposure to traffic-related emissions and health. Asthma, for example, has
been found to be more prevalent among children living close
to freeways, and researchers
have noted adverse effects on lung development that can lead to clinically
significant deficits in adulthood. Likewise, exposure to vehicle-generated
pollutants has
been found to diminish oxygen in the blood, which may have clinical significance
in people with compromised cardiopulmonary function. And it further has been
found that the risk of low birth weight and preterm birth increases among residents
of neighborhoods in closer proximity to higher traffic density.
These findings demonstrate that freeway-related emission
problems may be greater than previously understood and that they
raise
new issues about health effects
that may impact commuters and persons living in close proximity to freeways.
 Southern
California Environmental Report Card (Institute of the Environment)
Press
release on Environmental Report Card 2004
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