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Preterm Births Linked To Air Pollution Cost Billions In The US (time.com)
mdsolar quotes a report from TIME: Air pollution leads to 16,000 premature births in the United States each year, leading to billions of dollars in economic costs, according to new research. Researchers behind the study, published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, found that preterm births associated with particulate matter -- a type of pollutant -- led to more than $4 billion in economic costs in 2010 due to medical care and lost productivity that results from disability. And, like many other public health issues, affected populations tend to be concentrated in low-income areas home to large numbers of minorities. "This is another piece of the evidentiary pie about why we should really be doing something about air pollution," says Tracey Woodruff, a professor who studies reproductive health and the environment at the University of California, San Francisco. "When you reduce air pollution you get lots of different health benefits." Countless studies have shown the effect of air pollution on cardiovascular and respiratory health -- killing millions each year. Air pollution leads to inflammation in blood vessels and contributes to lung cancer, asthma and a slew of other disorders. The effect on pregnancy may in some ways be an extension of those effects as air pollution disrupts the way a pregnant woman delivers oxygen to the fetus. Air pollution may also disrupt the endocrine system, keeping women from producing a protein needed to regulate pregnancy, researchers say.
I'm here because they said something about an open bar.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Why is it concentrated in low-income areas. Wouldn't densely populated rich Urban areas like Manhattan be at high risk from Air pollution?
The study makes a lot of assumptions, and 'concludes' there is a correlation but I don't see the data behind that part. The cost includes a lot of interesting components, including lifetime productivity loss for the PTB individual. They include any economic loss they can count, but they don't offset with the jobs created by caring for some of the individuals, which sounds cold but it should be factored in as well.
Regardless, this study seems to have a very wide margin of error associated with it.
this is a tech story. technically it's STEM but that's what passes for tech nowadays. all the tech jobs are being shipped off to China and India anyway.
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there are over 500,000 pre-term births in the USA, so 15,000 are due to particulate air pollution eh?
This little slice from the paper says it all, i.e., their claim is an ass-pull
Though uncertainty remains about the contribution of specific outdoor
air pollutants and
windows of vulnerability, multiple observational studies of prenatal exposure have associated
among other pollutants with adverse birth
outcomes, most especially LBW and PTB (Darrow et al. 2009; Kloog et al. 2012; Laurent et al.
2016), although some studies did not report this association (Johnson et al. 2016). In addition,
one quasi-experimental study identified reductions in PTB and LBW in association with
electronic toll collection, which also reduced traffic congestion and vehicle emissions
.
Further support for the notion that outdoor air pollution exposure may contribute to adverse
birth outcomes is provided by laboratory experiments that document oxidant stress, inflammation
and placental insufficiency as mechanisms by which air pollutants
can contribute to early
delivery (Institute of Medicine 2007; USEPA 2013; Woodruff et al. 2009).
I can only hope sooner rather than later we as a species accept the fact our bond to this earth is closer and more intimate than we have generally been aware. Things we do that impact the environment whether it is air pollution, water pollution, fracking, deforestation etc etc dramatically impacts our quality of life as a species. Furthermore the impact may not be felt in our lifetimes, but during the lifetimes of generations not yet born !
I'm here because they said something about an open bar.
They pulled me in with a promise of "Nudes for Nerds" . . .
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Ths is what happens when yu have passed the technological singularity event horizon.
Even Ray Kurzweil predicted that n the future all jobs we were going to be lawyer/politicians.
Actually, we're outsourcing the lawyer jobs too.
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Hypothesis: noise pollution leads to bad sleeping habits in a pregnant mother which negatively impact the health of a baby.
It would be interesting to see a study mapping noise pollution (high-density fire and ambulance all night, nearby night clubs or bars, etc...) with health of the child.
I would hate to guess what it costs in China, India, Russia, etc. Our air is far far cleaner than most of the other nations. Even now, we are wiping out emissions from coal, etc.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Elon will save us!
You forgot the Kardashians. They had to have caused some of those PTBs...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Back when you and I first joined Slashdot, its motto was, "News for nerds; stuff that matters." I'd like to think that an article about how air pollution is causing more preterm births is something that matters, even to nerds.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
And how good is the science behind this story? Sure too much PM2.5 is bad, but what's the mechanism that would drive preterms??
The cause may very well be something else, and the story just more propaganda and disinformation.
How about doing away with the evil in trade treaties that allows pushing foods with poor content and location disclosure, and worse yet U.S. standards.
We've still got Bisphenol-A lining our cans???
Besides what they say that does, that leads to men with smaller junk! And maybe it'll make ya grow up to look like Trump.
The stillbirth rate is higher in China. http://chartsbin.com/view/1445 Perhaps there is a different way of counting owing to different neonatal procedures.
All of the air pollution, water pollution, fracking, deforestation, and general environmental impact we've had on the world has been the result of processes that ultimately lead to a dramatically improved quality of life for us. Sometimes you gotta take the good with the bad.