Every year, more than 7 million people, including 2 million children, die prematurely from pollution-related illnesses
Why clean air?
Children are at an increased risk for adverse health outcomes due to air pollution.
Studies have also associated poor Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) with a decrease in students' ability to perform specific mental tasks requiring concentration, calculation, and memory. There is also mounting evidence that poor IAQ can cause verbal, perceptual, motor, and behavioral disabilities in children. It can also cause hearing impairment, irritability, and developmental delays.
Not only can poor IAQ cause illnesses that keep students home from school, but recent findings have also shown that it may directly reduce their ability to learn.
Over 50% of respiratory infections linked to air pollution
Research shows that over half of all childhood respiratory infections can be linked to both indoor and outdoor air pollution - and that more severe, acute respiratory infections are one of the top five causes of death in children under five worldwide, second only to premature birth (which is also linked to air pollution in many cases).
According to a 2018 World Health Organization (WHO) report, both ambient air pollution (APP) and household air pollution (HAP) resulted in respiratory infections that caused the deaths of at least 543,000 children younger than five years old.
The WHO report also detailed evidence that even just brief exposure to pollutants like PM2.5, nitrogen dioxide, and ozone increased the risk of contracting pneumonia and related respiratory infections that can potentially be fatal.
Air pollution slows or stops lung development
The dangers of air pollution can be felt long before birth and in the first few years when children's bodies are still developing.
According to a seminal research published in the June 2000 issue of Environmental Health Perspectives, air pollution doesn't affect fetuses and young children the same as adults - while many adults only have temporary symptoms related to short-term airborne pollutant exposure, pollutants like tobacco smoke and traffic pollutants are far more dangerous to children, not just upon first exposure but for their long-term health and development.
In fact, many of these "developmental toxicants" can cause lifelong toxicological changes in the immune system and developing stem cells of children and young adults up to 20 years old - and these changes can result in underdeveloped lungs and alveoli, the small air sacs in the lungs that deliver oxygen to the bloodstream. Underdeveloped lungs have reduced capacity that leads to debilitating respiratory conditions like asthma and irreversible lung damage.
Living with adults who smoke increases risk of COPD
Tobacco smoke is a common source of air pollution around the world - and the effects of the chemicals and carcinogens in tobacco smoke have an outsized impact on young children for the rest of their lives.
A 2016 report in Respirology detailed the results of a long-term study of over 8,500 participants from 1968 to 2016 - the researchers found definitively that children who grew up with parents who smoked had nearly three times the normal risk of reduced lung function, lung tissue scarring, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
