A University of Cincinnati-led study has found one third of all public schools in the United States are located within 400 metres (a quarter mile) of major highways.
Img: Highway Traffic, Atlanta. Credit: dougww/flickr
The close proximity of these schools to major arterial routes places them in the "air pollution danger zone," said the research, leaving the school-age children more at risk of respiratory illnesses later in life.
Childrens' exposure to major pollutants such as aerosolising diesel exhaust particles, was a "major concern," according to researchers.
"This is a major public health concern that should be given serious consideration in future urban development, transportation planning and environmental policies," said Sergey Grinshpun, Ph. D, principal investigator of the study and professor of environmental health at the University of Cincinnati (UC).
He added that city planners should take childrens' respiratory requirements into account in the future designs of the nations' town and cities and existing schools should be retro-fitted with filtration systems.
"Health risk can be mitigated through proper urban planning, but that doesn’t erase the immediate risk to school-age children attending schools that are too close to highways right now," said Grinshpun. "Existing schools should be retrofitted with air filtration systems that will reduce students’ exposure to traffic pollutants."
"Major roads play an important role in the economy, but we need to strike a balance between economic and health considerations as we break ground on new areas," outlined Alexandra Appatova, the study’s first author. "Policymakers need to develop new effective strategies that would encourage urban planners to reconsider our current infrastructure, particularly when it comes to building new schools and maintaining existing ones."
More than 8,800 schools representing six million students were examined in the survey, according to a UC news release. Grinshpun’s team conducted a survey of major metropolitan areas representative of all geographical regions of the United States: Atlanta, Boston, Cincinnati, Denver, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Memphis, Minneapolis and San Antonio.
The findings will be published in the September issue of the Journal of Environmental Planning and Management.
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