Are you putting your adopted child at risk for developing asthma? A study of 3000 healthy children over a six-year period suggests that many parents are. Is your home is close to a busy road? Yes, then you have increased your child’s chance of developing asthma, hay fever, eczema, or other allergies by 50 percent. The study results indicate that those children living at least 1,000 meters away from a busy road were much healthier. What is the definition of a busy road? At least 10,000 vehicles a day drive on the road was the definition used by this study. Pollution has been linked to allergies in previous studies but with inconsistent outcomes.
This study was led by Joachim Heinrich, an epidemiologist at the Helmholtz Research Centre for Environment and Health in Munich. The consistent associations between main road distance from home and allergic disease outcome was documented in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.
The 3,000 healthy children from the greater Munich area were followed from birth to six years. Specifically researchers looked at rates of diseases that were allergy related and traffic pollution exposure. Each study participant’s residential address was mapped to calculate the distance to the busy roads by researchers. Then the researchers made a model of the area to calculate the exposure to pollution at birth, age two, three, and six. The model helped the researchers to follow a large group over a long period.
Although results from the study have been released, researchers are not finished with the project. Apparently, they will continue monitor the children for a few more years. They want to change the focus of the study slightly for this period. Researchers will be investigating if traffic pollution related health problems could be reversed by moving the children to a less polluted area.
This could certainly lay some guilt on an adoptive parent couldn’t it? If your child has asthma or allergies and you live near a busy road, will you consider moving?
Photo Credit: 2004 Julia Fuller.