Environmental Justice and the Health of Children (original) (raw)
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We conducted a cross sectional study, involving 145 children randomly selected from three different socioeconomic locations. We selected social, environment and health indicators and measured the prevalence and prevalence odds ratios. Children from the brick producing site (segregation index 5), are exposed to high levels of multiple toxic agents, and showed the highest morbidity rates and malnutrition, anemia, dental fluorosis, and the lowest IQ, followed by children from municipal garbage dump (segregation index 4), where we detected the highest prevalence of dermatological and enteric diseases. Children from the Central Zone (segregation index 2) showed the lowest rates of malnutrition and higher IQ than the other two groups. A unified vision of social, health and environmental indicators opens the possibility of novel intervention programs and a legal framework that specifically protect children against environmental exposures.
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 2006
A growing body of evidence has been generated indicating that the fetus, infant, and young child are especially susceptible to environmental toxicants as diverse as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), pesticides, lead, mercury, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and environmental tobacco smoke (ETS). Exposures to these toxicants may be related to the increases in recent decades in childhood asthma, cancer, and developmental disability. The Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health (CCCEH), located in New York City, has developed four cohorts around the world to elucidate the relationships between these exposures and childhood illness. This article summarizes the recent findings from the Center's projects in the context of current research in children's environmental health.
Assessment of Environmental Health Children’s Population Living in Environmental Injustice Scenarios
Journal of Community Health, 2012
We conducted a cross sectional study, involving 145 children randomly selected from three different socioeconomic locations. We selected social, environment and health indicators and measured the prevalence and prevalence odds ratios. Children from the brick producing site (segregation index 5), are exposed to high levels of multiple toxic agents, and showed the highest morbidity rates and malnutrition, anemia, dental fluorosis, and the lowest IQ, followed by children from municipal garbage dump (segregation index 4), where we detected the highest prevalence of dermatological and enteric diseases. Children from the Central Zone (segregation index 2) showed the lowest rates of malnutrition and higher IQ than the other two groups. A unified vision of social, health and environmental indicators opens the possibility of novel intervention programs and a legal framework that specifically protect children against environmental exposures.
Commentary: Children's Health and the Environment: A New Agenda for Prevention Research
Environmental Health Perspectives, 1998
Patterns of illness in American children have changed dramatically in this century. The ancient infectious diseases have largely been controlled. The major diseases confronting children now are chronic and disabling conditions termed the "new pediatric morbidity" asthma mortality has doubled; leukemia and brain cancer have increased in incidence; neurodevelopmental dysfunction is widespread; hypospadias incidence has doubled. Chemical toxicants in the environment as well as poverty, racism, and inequitable access to medical care are factors known and suspected to contribute to causation of these pediatric diseases. Children are at risk of exposure to over 15,000 high-production-volume synthetic chemicals, nearly all of them developed in the past 50 years. These chemicals are used widely in consumer products and are dispersed in the environment. More than half are untested for toxicity. Children appear uniquely vulnerable to chemical toxicants because of their disproportionately heavy exposures and their inherent biological susceptibility. To prevent disease of environmental origin in America's children, the Children's Environmental Health Network (CEHN) calls for a comprehensive, national, childcentered agenda. This agenda must recognize children's vulnerabilities to environmental toxicants. It must encompass a) a new prevention-oriented research focus; b) a new childcentered paradigm for health risk assessment and policy formulation; and c) a campaign to educate the public, health professionals, and policy makers that environmental disease is caused by preventable exposures and is therefore avoidable. To anchor the agenda, CEHN calls for longterm, stable investment and for creation of a national network of pediatric environmental health research and prevention centers.
Special vulnerability of children to environmental exposures
Reviews on Environmental Health, 2012
Special vulnerability of children to environmental exposures feeding. Children also interact with their environment in a very different manner from adults. They are physically located in a different zone. Although the adult breathing zone is approximately a meter from the fl oor, the child breathes in a zone much closer to the ground. Children explore their environment and usually put objects in their mouths regardless of whether the object is something to be eaten or not (1). Children do not understand danger especially when they are in the early stages of crawling and walking. In addition, children are in a state of continuous growth. They breathe faster and take in more air than adults relative to their body mass. They consume more calories and drink more water relative to body mass. Their diet is more restrictive than that of adults, and this potentially exposes them to higher proportions of unwanted substances. Children around the world today confront environmental hazards that were not known or even suspected a few decades ago. In the past 50 years, more than 84,000 new synthetic chemical compounds have been developed with over 2800 chemicals produced in high volume. Fewer than 20 % of these high-volume chemicals have been examined for their potential to cause developmental toxicity to fetuses, infants, and children (2). Thus, the world is a very different place for a child and an adult. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that about a quarter of the global burden of disease is attributable to environmental factors. However, the disease burden for children accounts for approximately one third of this, and with the estimate based on traditional methodology, it almost certainly underestimates the contribution of new and emerging exposures (3). In the 2006 report (3) , which looked at more than 80 diseases and risks, WHO reports that the burden is not equal between the developing and the developed world. Except for some of the non-communicable diseases, the developing world bears the brunt of this burden, and children carry a disproportionally large share. WHO reports that the infant death rate is 12 times higher in the developing world. How are children exposed ? Local factors like geography, population demographics, and cultural practices all have an infl uence on how children are likely to be exposed to environmental hazards. They are exposed in the places they spend most of their time, via media like water, air, food, soil, and objects that carry the hazards. They are also exposed as a consequence of their activities (eating, drinking, playing, exploring, learning, etc.) and through specifi c age appropriate behaviors (crawling, tasting, and " hand-to-mouth " behavior in a toddler; hobbies and drugtaking in adolescents).
American Journal of Public Health, 2004
RESEARCH AND PRACTICE Objectives. We documented inequitable, cumulative environmental risk exposure and health between predominantly White low-income and middle-income children residing in rural areas in upstate New York. Methods. Cross-sectional data for 216 third-through fifth-grade children included overnight urinary neuroendocrine levels, noise levels, residential crowding (people/room), and housing quality. Results. After control for income, maternal education, family structure, age, and gender, cumulative environmental risk exposure (0-3) (risk > 1 SD above the mean for each singular risk factor [0, 1]) was substantially greater for low-income children. Cumulative environmental risk was positively correlated with elevated overnight epinephrine, norepinephrine, and cortisol in the low-income sample but not in the middle-income sample. Conclusions. Cumulative environmental risk exposure among low-income families may contribute to bad health, beginning in early childhood.
Environmental Health Perspectives, 2002
In this study, we aimed to estimate the contribution of environmental pollutants to the incidence, prevalence, mortality, and costs of pediatric disease in American children. We examined four categories of illness: lead poisoning, asthma, cancer, and neurobehavioral disorders. To estimate the proportion of each attributable to toxins in the environment, we used an environmentally attributable fraction (EAF) model. EAFs for lead poisoning, asthma, and cancer were developed by panels of experts through a Delphi process, whereas that for neurobehavioral disorders was based on data from the National Academy of Sciences. We define environmental pollutants as toxic chemicals of human origin in air, food, water, and communities. To develop estimates of costs, we relied on data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Health Care Financing Agency, and the Practice Management Information Corporation. EAFs were judged to be 100% for lead poisoning, 30% for asthma (range, 10-35%), 5% for cancer (range, 2-10%), and 10% for neurobehavioral disorders (range, 5-20%). Total annual costs are estimated to be 54.9billion(range54.9 billion (range 54.9billion(range48.8-64.8 billion): 43.4billionforleadpoisoning,43.4 billion for lead poisoning, 43.4billionforleadpoisoning,2.0 billion for asthma, 0.3billionforchildhoodcancer,and0.3 billion for childhood cancer, and 0.3billionforchildhoodcancer,and9.2 billion for neurobehavioral disorders. This sum amounts to 2.8 percent of total U.S. health care costs. This estimate is likely low because it considers only four categories of illness, incorporates conservative assumptions, ignores costs of pain and suffering, and does not include late complications for which etiologic associations are poorly quantified. The costs of pediatric environmental disease are high, in contrast with the limited resources directed to research, tracking, and prevention.