<a href="http://www.irvinehousingblog.com/blog/comments/on-the-5/">On the 5</a>
I found an <a href="http://envirohealthhouston.org/hazards/freeways.html">interesting website</a> that discusses the effects of freeway pollution on health. I found the following on that site:
?The majority of studies show that health effects begin along roadways that carry 20,000 or more vehicles per day, and are strongest for persons who live, work or go to school within about 3 football fields from the edge of a freeway?.
Why is freeway pollution bad?
More than 100 major studies have been published over the last decade documenting the relationship between freeway pollution and health. These are some of the findings:
* Children who lived within 200 meters of a high-traffic roadway were nearly two times more likely to be hospitalized for asthma than similar children who lived further away from traffic (Lin et al., 2002).
* Cough during the first year of life correlated strongly with the level of vehicle-related air pollution measured in front of the child?s home (Gehring et al., 2002).
* Children exposed to higher levels of traffic-related pollution before the age of 3 were more than two times more likely to develop asthma than similar children exposed to lower levels of traffic pollution (Zmirou et al., 2004).
* Pregnant women who lived close to high-traffic roadways during pregnancy were more likely to give birth prematurely or have a low-weight baby, putting the child at risk for health problems in life (Wilhelm and Ritz, 2003)
* Increasing residential exposure to particulate pollution from roadway traffic was strongly associated with an increased risk of being admitted to a hospital for heart problems (Janssen et al., 2002).
* Adults who lived within 200 meters of a busy roadway were 7 percent more likely to die from a stroke than those who lived further from the roadway (Maheswaran and Elliott, 2003).?
It doesn?t make you want to live by a freeway, does it?
