Hazardous Air in the Neighborhood– Local Pollution and Asthma

No one wants to be exposed to air pollution. No one wants to raise their kids breathing in polluted air in their own neighborhoods.

But in Austin, Texas, people of color are disproportionately forced to do both.

Dr. Sarah Chambliss, a research associate in the Department of Population Health at Dell Medical School at the University of Texas at Austin, led a team that ran a study of who is being affected by air pollution in Austin, neighborhood by neighborhood.

They found that while Austin has relatively little of the heavy industry traditionally linked with air pollution, it’s got plenty of polluted air. And the people living in the worst affected neighborhoods were far more likely to be Black or Latino(a) than White, they report in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

It’s not just unpleasant. People living in polluted areas are much more likely to end up in emergency rooms for asthma attacks. That’s expensive for everyone because in the United States hospitals must treat people coming to emergency rooms in distress and those costs are passed along to taxpayers as well as to health insurers – who pass along those expenses to customers.

Aside from hurting people of color more than others, air pollution is costing everyone –in this case, residents of Austin– a lot of money, Chambliss tells One World, One Health host Maggie Fox. Listen as Chambliss explains what else she and her team found, and what can be done to address the problem.

Guest

Dr. Sarah Chambliss, Ph.D., MSE is a Research Associate in the Department of Population Health at the University of Texas at Austin Dell Medical School. She earned her Master of Science in Engineering and Ph.D in Civil Engineering from the department of Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering at the Cockrell School of Engineering at UT Austin, specializing in urban air quality with a focus on the drivers of neighborhood-scale pollution gradients and their implications for exposure and environmental justice. Dr. Chambliss currently focuses on identifying the impact of localized air pollution exposure inequity on within-city racial and ethnic disparity in asthma.