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Thursday, March 26, 2015

Science Magazine- Kids' Lung Health Improves in So. Cal.


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Left: A smoggy haze lingers over Los Angeles in the evening in the 1980s. Right: The Los Angeles skyline in March, 2015.
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© Philip James Corwin/CORBIS (left); © Ringo Chiu/ZUMA Wire (right)
MARCH 26, 2015
Breathing Easier
Thanks to cleaner air, lung health improves in Southern California kids
BY JENNIFER ABBASI | FOR  
Efforts to reduce air pollution in the notoriously smog- and soot-ridden Los Angeles area are paying off. Kids growing up there today have better lung function than those raised in the region 20 years ago, according to a new University of Southern California study of 2,000 children.

Researchers compared the respiratory health of kids tested between 2007 and 2011 to a group examined between 1994 and 1998. When tested, all of the children in the study were between the ages of 11 and 15, which is when people’s lungs grow the most, and they all hailed from the same neighborhoods. The later group had better lung capacity, especially among those kids with asthma. Abnormally poor lung function dropped from nearly 8 percent to 3.6 percent among 15-year-olds.

California has been working to get rid of the car and truck engines and fuels that generate the most pollution. Cleaning up oil refineries, manufacturing plants, and polluting products like paints and solvents has helped too, reports National Geographic. But although the efforts have resulted in major gains for kids’ respiratory health—and a far less smoggy LA compared with two decades ago—scientists say there’s still more work to be done to reduce harmful ozone and fine particles in the air. The area still has a ways to go before it meets federal health standards for these air quality factors.
 
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