Exposure shortly after birth to ambient metals from fuel oil combustion and particles from diesel emissions is associated with respiratory symptoms in young inner-city children, according to a new study by researchers at the Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health (CCCEH) at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health.
The study is published in the December 1, 2009, issue of the American Thoracic Society's American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.
"It appears that exposure to ambient metals and diesel-exhaust particles in our air may lead to several respiratory symptoms for young children living in urban areas," said senior investigator Rachel L. Miller, M.D., associate professor of Medicine and Environmental Health Sciences (in Pediatrics) at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center and co-deputy director of CCCEH at the Mailman School of Public Health. "The effects of exposure to airborne metals had not been studied previously in children so young, and these findings could have important public health implications for members of inner-city communities in New York City and elsewhere."
To determine these effects, the researchers studied pollutant levels and respiratory symptoms in a cohort of more than 600 New York City children from Northern Manhattan and South Bronx between birth and two years of age. They used monitoring data to gauge three-month average ambient air concentrations of nickel, vanadium, elemental carbon and zinc as well as particulate matter. After controlling for exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke, sex, ethnicity and seasonal trends, they found that the airborne metals nickel and vanadium, whose major source in New York City is residual oil combustion for heating, were risk factors for wheezing in young children. Elemental carbon, an indicator of diesel exhaust, was associated with increased frequency of coughing only during cold and flu season months (September through April).