Correlations Between Childhood Academic Performance and Indoor Air Quality

For most parents, the academic success of their children is crucial, in that it is the very foundation that a child’s future is built upon. It is because of this, that a child’s ability to attend school on a regular basis is extremely important to their overall academic performance. Many people are unaware of the importance the environment plays in a child’s ability to succeed academically. One factor that can substantially limit a child’s ability to thrive physically and academically is that of poor indoor air quality. It is important to understand the part that indoor air quality plays in our school systems and how to improve it.

There have been numerous case studies and physical evidence that have highlighted the affects of poor IAQ on the respiratory system, and how it contributes to the onset of asthma. “According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, asthma is one of the leading causes of school absenteeism.” The evidence indicates that a child’s “overall performance decreases with illnesses or absences from school.” If a child is unable to attend classes or focus while at school, their grades will suffer because of this. Since many school professionals and parents are unaware of how detrimental poor IAQ can be to a child’s health and performance, they may attribute the child’s struggle to some other factor.

What is Bad Ozone?

Sometimes we hear that ozone is good, as in the ozone layer, and sometimes we hear that ozone is bad as in air pollution or smog.  How can it be both good and bad?  This depends on where it is in the environment and how it is formed.  


This page will discuss the so called "bad ozone" or "ground level ozone".  To learn about "good ozone" by clicking on this link.  


In the Earth’s lower atmosphere, near ground level, ozone is formed when pollutants emitted by cars, power plants, chemical plants, and other sources react chemically in the presence of sunlight. 


Ozone pollution is a concern during the summer months when the weather conditions needed to form ground-level ozone—lots of sun, hot temperatures—normally occur.

Ozone can irritate your respiratory system, causing you to start coughing, feel an irritation in your throat and/or experience an uncomfortable sensation in your chest. Ozone can reduce lung function and make it more difficult for you to breathe as deeply and vigorously as you normally would. 


When this happens, you may notice that breathing starts to feel uncomfortable. If you are exercising or working outdoors, you may notice that you are taking more rapid and shallow breaths than normal. 


Ozone can aggravate asthma. When ozone levels are high, more people with asthma have attacks that require a doctor’s attention or the use of additional medication. One reason this happens is that ozone makes people more sensitive to allergens, which are the most common triggers for asthma attacks. Also, asthmatics are more severely affected by the reduced lung function and irritation that ozone causes in the respiratory system. 


Ozone can inflame and damage cells that line your lungs. Within a few days, the damaged cells are replaced and the old cells are shed—much in the way your skin peels after a sunburn. 


Ozone may aggravate chronic lung diseases such as emphysema and bronchitis and reduce the immune system’s ability to fight off bacterial infections in the respiratory system.

This is why ozone water treatment systems are designed to remove ozone before the vent gas is released into the environment.

Here are some additional links on ground level ozone:

Ozone and Your Health (USEPA)
Smog - Who Does it Hurt? (USEPA)
Summertime Safety: Keeping Kids Safe from Sun and Smog (USEPA)USEPA Ozone Air Quality StandardsUS Ozone Air Quality Trends


gotquestions http://www.spartanwatertreatment.com/ground-level-ozone.html

Urban pollution will be top environmental cause of early death by 2050, new report says

Urban pollution is predicted to cause more early deaths than any other environmental factor. China and India will be hit especially hard, a new report says.

Amy Silverstein 

Urban air pollution will become the top environmental killer by 2050, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has found. The Paris-based policy group said Thursday that dirty air will kill more people worldwide each year than dirty drinking water or unsanitary living conditions.

A new report released by the group says that 3.6 million people are expected to die each year from breathing in air pollutants that affect the respiratory system. Most of those deaths will occur in China and India. 

"Action needs to be taken now to prevent irreversible damage to the environment," the report urges.

Possible solutions include switching to cleaner forms of energy and changing the way fuel is taxed. Many governments, for example, give tax breaks to people who use diesel fuel because it has lower greenhouse gas emissions. But diesel fuel is actually worse for human health because it releases more "particulate matter" into the air, which harms the lungs, the Guardian reported.  

"In environmental terms, there is no reason to give diesel tax breaks," Simon Upton, environment director at the OECD, told the Guardian.

The report also found that greenhouse gas emissions will increase 50 percent by 2050 if world governments do not come up with new policies to fight pollution, such as carbon taxes. If nothing changes, renewable energy sources will continue to make up just 10 percent of energy sources, Reuters reported.

"Greening agriculture, water and energy supply and manufacturing will be critical by 2050 to meet the needs of over 9 billion people,” OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría said in a press release. 

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/china/120316/urban-pollution-will-be-top-environmental-cause-early-death