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Asthma Rates And Costs Rise Due To Traffic Pollution
By Petra Rattue 
27 Jan 2012
Medical News Today

An international study of asthma, published in the early online version of the European Respiratory Journal, has for the first time, included the number of incidents caused by air pollution and shows that the costs for childhood asthma have risen sharply.

Leading researcher Sylvia Brandt, a University of Massachusetts Amherst resource economist, and her team in California and Switzerland state that the overall financial burden of asthma caused by pollution is substantially higher than originally indicated by traditional risk assessments, and in light of the growing evidence that asthma can be caused and trigger attacks from exposure to traffic-related air pollution, it should be included. The team conducted their study in Long Beach and Riverside, Calif., communities with high regional air pollution levels and large roads close to residential neighborhoods.

According to their findings, the total additional asthma-specific costs at the study site due to traffic-related pollution amounts to approximately $18 million per year, with nearly half of the cost accounting for new asthma cases caused by pollution.

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