A new study into the impact of air pollution on infants, carried out by the IUF-Leibniz Research Institute for Environmental Medicine and recently presented at the international congress of the European Respiratory Society, has found that babies who experience low-level exposure to pollution at a young age are significantly more likely to suffer from impaired lung function in childhood and through their teenage years than babies who are not exposed.
A second study, also presented at the international congress meeting, found a 29% increased asthma risk for every 6.3 micrograms of exposure to a small particulate matter known as PM2.5, as well as a 16% greater asthma risk for each 8.2 µg/m3 increase of nitrogen dioxide exposure.
The IUF-Leibniz study looked at 915 children living in Germany, analysing their lung function at the ages of 6, 10, and 15. Researchers mapped the children’s results against the estimated levels of pollution in the places they had grown up in until they were 12 months old (accounting for other risk factors for reduced lung function in childhood, such as parental smoking).
Results showed that as levels of pollution exposure as a baby increased, the worse the lung function for the teenager and the impact for those children who had developed asthma was even worse.
Worryingly the findings suggested that thresholds for air pollution exposure in Europe are not stringent enough; even infant exposure to “low level” pollution that falls within acceptable EU standards adversely affected lung function and development in the children as they reached ages 6 through 15.
Researchers found this a particular concern as it confirms that damage to the lungs during a child’s first year is likely to have ramifications throughout their lifespan.
However, it is difficult to see how with so much of both the developed and developing world reliant on fossil fuels for their energy, the required change can be brought about. A 2019 study published in Lancet Planetary Health showed that the European Union could prevent as many as 67,000 cases of childhood asthma if its member states stayed within World Health Organization air quality limit values. (1)
Furthermore, the IUF-Leibniz study is far from the first to link air pollution exposure to reduced lung function in children. One landmark Southern California Children’s Health study of 1,759 children, examined the long-term impact of air pollution on children and teenagers. It found that greater levels of air pollution exposure were linked to a level of impaired lung growth that is comparable to being brought up in a home with parents who smoked.(2)
The issue would seem very pertinent at a time when exposure to air pollution has been shown to be a key factor in influencing a person’s chances of dying as a result of COVID-19 infection.(3)
A number of organisations, including Asthma UK and the British Lung Foundation, have called for the UK to commit to the WHO’s air pollution thresholds, which are more stringent than those of the EU, but so far they have been unable to achieve success in this regard.