Impact of Climate Change on Childhood Asthma 

Chinmayi Venkatram

Asthma is a genetic and environmental disorder that causes the narrowing of airways in the lungs and subsequent difficulty in breathing. This condition affects up to 150 million people around the world and is the most common chronic disease seen in pediatric patients. Compared to other organ systems, the lungs are more exposed to the environment, and children’s lungs are particularly susceptible to air pollution. Ground-level ozone is a secondary pollutant strongly linked to childhood respiratory illness and increased emergency department visits for asthma. Unfortunately, climate change is projected to increase air-pollutant levels and ground level ozone through both temperature and wind-pattern changes.

Dr. Sheffield and his colleagues at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine and Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health in New York aimed to model regional projections of future pediatric asthma cases related to climate-driven changes in the U.S. They focused on assessing how climate change alone might contribute to changes in summer ozone concentration and associated pediatric asthma emergency department visits in the New York City metropolitan area over the next 10-15 years.

The study included 14 New York State counties that are considered part of the New York City (NYC) metropolitan area. The researchers first projected ground-level ozone levels by linking models for global climate, regional climate and regional air quality. The regional model they created simulated ozone levels for the summer season (June-August) for five consecutive mid-decadal years in the 1990’s and 2020s. Next, they used a health-impact assessment framework to assess changes in ozone-related asthma emergency department visits in children aged 0-17 years in the 2020s compared with the 1990s. The study used publicly available New York State Department of Health asthma emergency department visit data.

Dr. Sheffield and his team found that average ozone projections for the summer increased across the 14 counties. His team projected that by the 2020s, climate change could cause a median increase of 7.3% in regional summer ozone-related asthma emergency department visits for children across the New York City metropolitan region. However, the distribution of ozone changes showed greater increases in the counties closer to the urban core. When they examined individual counties, the ozone-related emergency department increases ranged from 5.2% to 10.2%.

This study poses significant implications for the future of metropolitan areas around the world. Soon, hospitals could see increased climate-driven emergency room asthma cases. Implementing strategies to combat climate change that will work to reduce ozone levels and continuing to invest in better disease management strategies for asthma are important steps that need to be taken to ensure the welfare of children in metropolitan areas.

Sources

Sheffield, P. E., Knowlton, K., Carr, J. L., & Kinney, P. L. (2011). Modeling of regional climate change effects on ground-level ozone and childhood asthma. American journal of preventive medicine, 41(3), 251-257.