American Academy of Pediatrics Policy Statement Describes Short- and Long-Term Impacts of Ambient Air Pollution on Children’s Health

Mounting evidence shows the far-reaching consequences of ignoring how air quality exacerbates chronic illness and is linked with chronic conditions and diseases

ITASCA, IL -- The effects of ambient air pollution on children’s health are wide-ranging and long-lasting: Air pollution has been shown to worsen chronic diseases such as asthma, and it is also associated with preterm births, abnormal lung and neurodevelopment, pediatric cancer, obesity and cardiovascular disease risk.

The American Academy of Pediatrics details the harms of air pollution and provides recommendations for lessening its impact on children in a policy statement, “Ambient Air Pollution: Health Hazards to Children.” The policy statement will be published in the June 2021 issue of Pediatrics (published online May 17), drawing on considerably expanded research since its last statement in 2004.

“We know that infants and children are uniquely sensitive to air pollution because their bodies are developing. They also breathe in more air in relation to their body weight than adults do,” said Heather L. Brumberg, MD, MPH, FAAP, co-lead author of the statement by the AAP Council on Environmental Health. “We have seen that in ‘natural experiments’ –where efforts to decrease traffic during the 1996 and 2008 Olympics, for instance – both air quality and resultant community health improved. We must continue to more consciously work toward improving air quality.”

Common sources of air pollution include emissions from traffic, coal-fired power plants, older, inefficient wood burning stoves, agricultural production, and forest fires. Combustion processes increase not only toxic air pollutants but also create greenhouse gases, underscoring the relationship of air pollution and climate change. The pollutants contained in emissions can influence development of children’s organs from the fetal period through early, middle, and late childhood, according to the statement.

“Children living in poverty and in neighborhoods near industrial plants or other sources of local pollution face higher exposures and risk,” said Catherine J. Karr, MD, PhD, FAAP, co-lead author of the report. “National data continues to show Black, Hispanic and Asian children are disproportionately affected.”

The AAP recommends that pediatricians:

• Recognize air quality concerns and resources in their practice area and for individual patients.
• Serve as role models by walking, cycling or using other alternative transportation to gasoline-powered motor vehicles.
• Use the Air Quality Index as a tool in helping educate families of potential protective behaviors.
• Advocate for reversing rollbacks of emissions limits from coal, gas, and oil industries.
• Advocate for 100% renewable energy.
• Promote school and child care siting policies that reduce exposure to traffic derived air contaminants or other influential proximal sources.

“Air quality is something we take for granted. We don’t always realize how much it affects our health,  climate and thus the life of the planet,” Dr. Brumberg said. “Pediatricians can help make changes, small and big, with education and advocacy on behalf of children.”

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The American Academy of Pediatrics is an organization of 67,000 primary care pediatricians, pediatric medical subspecialists and pediatric surgical specialists dedicated to the health, safety and well-being of infants, children, adolescents and young adults.