A new study by researchers at UCLA and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston suggests that improvements in air quality over the past decade have resulted in fewer cases of ear infections in children.
Ear infections are one of the most common illnesses among children, with annual direct and indirect costs of $3 billion to $5 billion in the United States.
“We believe these findings, which demonstrate a direct correlation between air quality and ear infections, have both medical and political significance,” said study co-author Dr. Nina Shapiro, director of pediatric otolaryngology at Mattel Children’s Hospital UCLA and an associate professor of surgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. “The results validate the benefits of the revised Clean Air Act of 1990, which gave the Environmental Protection Agency more authority to implement and enforce regulations reducing air-pollutant emissions. It also shows that the improvements may have direct benefit on health-quality measures.”
The research appears in the February issue of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery, the official peer-reviewed publication of the American Academy of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery Foundation.
You want to go for a run, but you don’t want to run in polluted air that might aggravate your asthma. UC San Diego computer scientists are creating a network of environmental sensors that will help you avoid air pollution hot spots that exist exactly when you are planning your route. The system will provide up-to-the-minute information on outdoor and indoor air quality, based on environmental information collected by hundreds, and eventually thousands, of sensors attached to the backpacks, purses, jackets and board shorts of San Diegans going about daily life.
A report just released by the National Academies of Science estimates the “hidden” costs of energy production and use. These costs, which include human health effects, physical damages to buildings and other structures, and reduction in grain crop harvests caused by air pollution are not reflected in market prices of coal, oil, other energy sources, or the electricity and gasoline produced from them.
Thanks to the work of UCLA Dr. Jesse Araujo, patients with high cholesterol and those at risk for heart disease may one day be told by their doctors to avoid not only fatty foods and smoking but air pollution too.
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