Study links air pollution to children's low GPAs

I think of studies like this when I have to be around food truck gatherings, with their engines running.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-08/uota-sla082715.php

Public Release: 27-Aug-2015
Study links air pollution to children's low GPAs
The University of Texas at El Paso

EL PASO, Texas - A University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) study on children's health has found that fourth and fifth graders who are exposed to toxic air pollutants at home are more likely to have lower GPAs.

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Children who were exposed to high levels of motor vehicle emissions from cars, trucks and buses on roads and highways were found to have significantly lower GPAs, even when accounting for other factors known to influence school performance. The results of the study were published in the academic journal Population and Environment.

"There are two pathways that can help us to explain this association," said the study's co-author Sara E. Grineski, Ph.D., an associate professor of sociology and anthropology at UTEP. "Some evidence suggests that this association might exist because of illnesses, such as respiratory infections or asthma. Air pollution makes children sick, which leads to absenteeism and poor performance in school. The other hypothesis is that chronic exposure to air toxics can negatively affect children's neurological and brain development."

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"This isn't a phenomenon unique to EPISD," Grineski said. "What makes our study different is that we are actually studying kids in their home setting, but there's a body of literature where they have studied levels of air pollution at schools in California and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, instead of at children's homes. A study on the Los Angeles Unified School District showed that schools with higher levels of pollution have lower standardized test scores."

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Collins has reported that on-road mobile sources like the trucking industry are the largest contributors of overall air pollution in the city.

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