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Ambient air toxics and asthma prevalence among a representative sample of US kindergarten-age children

Criteria pollutants have been associated with exacerbation of children's asthma, but the role of air toxics in relation to asthma is less clear. Our objective was to evaluate whether exposure to outdoor air toxics in early childhood increased asthma risk or severity. Air toxics exposure was est...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2013-09, Vol.8 (9), p.e75176
Main Authors: Stoner, Alexis M, Anderson, Sarah E, Buckley, Timothy J
Format: Article
Language:English
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Summary:Criteria pollutants have been associated with exacerbation of children's asthma, but the role of air toxics in relation to asthma is less clear. Our objective was to evaluate whether exposure to outdoor air toxics in early childhood increased asthma risk or severity. Air toxics exposure was estimated using the 2002 National Air toxics Assessment (NATA) and linked to longitudinal data (n=6950) from a representative sample of US children born in 2001 and followed through kindergarten-age in the Early Child Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort (ECLS-B). Overall, 17.7% of 5.5 year-olds had ever been told by a healthcare professional they had asthma, and 6.8% had been hospitalized or visited an emergency room for an asthma attack. Higher rates of asthma were observed among boys (20.1%), low-income (24.8%), and non-Hispanic black children (30.0%) (p≤0.05). Air toxics exposure was greater for minority race/ethnicity (p
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0075176