Foundation-Funded Journalism: New Series Investigates Air Pollution’s Surprising Effects on Kids

Children breathe more air per pound of body weight than adults.

That’s just one of the eye-opening facts in a new Riverside Press-Enterprise series on air pollution and its effects on health in Southern California’s heavily industrialized Inland Empire.

This in-depth series of articles, photos, videos and interactive graphics was supported by a grant from the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health Journalism Fund, awarded by The California Endowment Health Journalism Fellowships at the USC Annenberg School of Journalism.

In the series, reporter David Danelski examines how the region’s air pollution, among the nation’s worst, harms children’s health and development:

The science documenting the harm of air pollution is vast.
It’s not just lungs that are affected. Like a Trojan horse, pollution carried inside the body in the simple, constant and necessary act of breathing is penetrating natural defenses and triggering an array of consequences.
In children, pollution can sabotage the biochemistry vital to the development of growing organs. In the womb, pollution is a suspected factor in miscarriage, birth defects and autism. And in a child’s formative years, breathing difficulties can develop and other diseases may take root in the brain and elsewhere.
Learning deficits have been found in children living in polluted areas. And new research finds that pregnant women exposed to certain pollution are more likely to have children who become obese, a condition with its own disease complications.

Children hurt by air pollution can face chronic illnesses, such as asthma, and a shorter lifespan than their own genes might have predicted.

For more information on air quality in your California county, check out these kidsdata.org indicators:

Air Quality: Days with Ozone Levels Above Regulatory Standard

Air Quality: Annual Average Particulate Matter Concentration

Related:
Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health Journalism Fund: Reporting on How The Affordable Care Act Affects California Children with Special Health Care Needs

PHOTO: Credit: Stan Lim, Riverside Press-Enterprise

Posted by Barbara Feder Ostrov

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