Children and Environmental Health: New Insights from Environmental Protection Agency and Kidsdata.org

A new update to a landmark Environmental Protection Agency study on children and the environment finds both good and bad news for America’s kids. And we’re seeing a similarly complex picture in California, according to kidsdata’s recently updated environmental health data.

First the good news from the EPA report, America’s Children and the Environment: the levels of toxins such as lead and cotinine (a marker of second-hand smoke exposure) in kids’ bodies have declined significantly since the 1970s. Kids increasingly are breathing less-polluted air in many communities as well.

Still – and this remains a mystery to scientists – despite nationwide improvements in air quality, asthma rates have risen slightly in U.S. children, particularly children of color.

Here are some highlights of kidsdata’s new environmental health data, which focus on conditions for California’s children:

Air Quality

• In 2010, the annual average level of “fine particulate matter,” or soot, in the air exceeded the concentration considered potentially harmful in only two California counties (out of 30 with available data): Kern and Riverside.

• That same year, San Bernardino County had the most recorded days (103) with ozone levels above the regulatory standard, among counties with available data, followed by Riverside (93), Tehama (78), Kern (69), and Los Angeles (69). The state as a whole averaged 15 days in which ozone concentrations exceeded regulations in 2010.

• Measures of air quality on kidsdata.org also indicate improvements in some areas. For example, the recorded number of days with high ozone levels in Fresno County decreased by 99 days in the past decade. In 2001, the county had 145 documented days in which ozone levels were above regulatory standards. In 2010, that number decreased to 46 days.

Lead Exposure

• In 2010, almost one-third (30%) of California children and youth identified with elevated blood levels resided in Los Angeles County.  The vast majority of children screened for lead poisoning are under age 6 because Medicaid and state regulations require that every child covered by a government-funded health program be preventively screened for lead poisoning twice, once at 12 months old and again at age 2 (or at the next opportunity up until age 6).

Water Contamination

• California had 1,730 violations indicating that contaminant levels in drinking water exceeded public health limits in 2009. Nearly two-thirds of these violations occurred in seven counties: Fresno (254 violations), Tulare (208), Kern (198), Madera (132), San Joaquin (110), Monterey (101), and Sonoma (100).

For more information and a deeper data dive, click here.

Posted by Barbara Feder Ostrov

Tags: environmental health, pollution