December 20, 2001	Thursday	Shawwal 4, 1422

WASHINGTON: Exposure to air pollution could harm children’s lungs as much as actively smoking, according to a new research study. The new study concluded that air pollution during adolescent growth years has a measurable effect on the functioning of the lungs, which could translate into respiratory problems later in life. The study added to a growing body of research that more and more children worldwide risk disease and death from air pollution.

“Ambient air pollution has a similar magnitude of effect on lung function development to that previously observed for children who are active smokers,” said the study. The researchers, from the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, studied 110 children from ages 10 to 15 in California who had moved from communities participating in a study of respiratory health.

They found that children who moved to communities with cleaner air showed improved growth in lung function. But those who moved to communities that had tested positive for pollution, including particulate matter, ozone, and nitrogen dioxide, had reduced growth in lung function.

“Periods of slowed lung growth, even during periods of peak respiratory growth (such as those experienced by males and females in their teen years), may have lifelong implications for health,” said the study, entitled: “Respiratory Effects of Relocating to Areas of Differing Pollution Levels.”

Children are more at risk than adults because their bodies are still developing, said Devra Lee Davis, an epidemiologist with the Washington-based World Resources Institute (WRI) in a comment on the study.

A child’s lung, for example, grows most rapidly in the first two years of life. They also tend to absorb pollutants more readily than adults do, and retain them in the body for longer periods of time, she said.

Because their breathing rates are substantially higher than adults, children are exposed to greater levels of pollutants, added Davis, who has researched the impacts of pollution on children.

Some of the most polluted environments are cities in developing countries, especially China, India and Mexico. Most of the world’s children risk disease and death because they are growing up in rapidly expanding urban areas where they regularly breathe polluted air, according to research by WRI and the WHO.

More than 80 per cent of the world’s children under the age of 15 live in developing countries, and half of them live in urban areas. Already, air pollution in the developing world is responsible for at least 50 million cases of chronic cough in children under five. Respiratory disease, says WRI and the WHO, is now the leading cause of death in children worldwide.

Mexico City is ranked as the most toxic to children, in terms of combined risks for three pollutants, particulates, nitrogen dioxide and sulphur dioxide, according to WRI and the WHO. The Chinese cities of Beijing and Shanghai have the second and third most polluted air.

Tehran as well as Kolkata, Mumbai and Delhi, and the major cities of the Philippines and Brazil, round out the top-10 centres with the worst air quality.

Davis said that developing countries must reduce pollution by making the switch to renewable sources of energy like solar and wind as well as making more efficient use of their existing fossil fuel sources. In reaction to the new study on the impact of air pollution on children’s lungs, US environmentalists called for increased air pollution standards.

—Dawn/InterPress Service.