A mountain of evidence on air pollution's harms to children

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-12/cums-amo122018.php

Public Release: 20-Dec-2018
Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health

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"There is extensive evidence on the many harms of air pollution on children's health," says Perera. "Our paper presents these findings in a convenient fashion to support clean air and climate change policies that protect children's health."

The World Health Organization (WHO) has estimated that more than 40 percent of the burden of environmentally related disease and about 90 percent of the burden of climate change is borne by children under five, although that age group constitutes only 10 percent of the global population. The direct health impacts in children of air pollution from fossil fuel combustion include adverse birth outcomes, impairment of cognitive and behavioral development, respiratory illness, and potentially childhood cancer. As a major driver of climate change, combustion of fossil fuel is also directly and indirectly contributing to illness, injury, death, and impaired mental health in children through more frequent and severe heat events, coastal and inland flooding, drought, forest fires, intense storms, the spread of infectious disease vectors, increased food insecurity, and greater social and political instability. These impacts are expected to worsen in the future.

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