2006 CPEO Brownfields List Archive

From: Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>
Date: 26 Apr 2006 17:25:37 -0000
Reply: cpeo-brownfields
Subject: [CPEO-BIF] Urban air
 
Press release
Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health
April 25, 2006

In utero exposure to urban air pollutants can increase risk
Prenatal exposure to air pollutants in New York City can adversely affect child development, according to the results of a study released today by the Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health (CCCEH) at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. Previous studies have shown that the same air pollutants can reduce fetal growth (both weight and head circumference at birth), but this study, which examined a group of the same children at three years of age, is the first to reveal that those pollutants can also affect cognitive development during childhood.


The study will be published online Monday, April 24, 2006, and can be accessed at the following URL: http://www.ehponline.org/docs/2006/9084/abstract.html.

Investigators at the Center studied a sample of 183 three-year-old children of non-smoking African-American and Dominican women residing in the neighborhoods of Washington Heights, Central Harlem, and the South Bronx. They found that exposure during pregnancy to combustion-related urban air pollutants known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) were linked to significantly lower scores on mental development tests and more than double the risk of developmental delay at age three. Such delay in cognitive development is indicative of greater risk for performance deficits in language, reading, and math in the early school years.

In the study, the mothers' exposure during pregnancy to varying levels of airborne PAHs was measured by personal air monitoring. PAHs enter the environment when combustion occurs – such as from car, truck, or bus engines, residential heating, power generation, or tobacco smoking. Following inhalation by the mother, the pollutants can be transferred across the placenta to reach the fetus. Children were tested at age three using a standardized test of mental and psychomotor development.

For the entire press release, see
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-04/cums-iue042506.php

--


Lenny Siegel Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight c/o PSC, 278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041 Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545 Fax: 650/961-8918 <lsiegel@cpeo.org> http://www.cpeo.org


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