The value of clean air and water is rising, as environmental researchers continue to discover a wide range of adverse health effects associated with pollution.
Certain demographic groups are especially at risk, said Dan Costa, chief of the pulmonary toxicology branch at the National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory in Research Triangle Park.
"Studies of populations in high-density areas suggest that health impacts from pollution are especially relevant to people with existing conditions," particularly older people with cardio-pulmonary diseases and children with respiratory conditions like asthma, Costa said. "Kids spend time outdoors, running outdoors; air pollution is going to affect them much more than indoor people."
Marie Miranda, an associate professor of the practice at the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences, explained that both the behavior and physiology of children put them at risk.
"Behavior makes [children] more likely to be exposed to certain pollutants," she said. "They breathe in more air per body weight and drink more water per body weight, so they'll be exposed to more stuff.... And they have immature systems that may be affected more by pollutants." Miranda's group studies the health effects of lead, pesticides and other air and water toxins.
Jonathan Freedman, an associate professor at the Nicholas School, said the negative health effects of pollutants can often be unexpected. "People assume diseases like diabetes are from mutations in the cell," he said.
"What people don't think about is that you may be pre-disposed to a certain disease, but unless you are exposed to certain toxins, you will never see effects of the disease."
Freedman investigates the adverse health effects of transition metals, such as cadmium, chromium and mercury, which can filter into the environment from sources as varied as cigarette smoke, automobile exhaust and the burning of fossil fuels.
After entering the lung, these metals and other particulate matter in the air can be absorbed into the bloodstream.
"[Transition metals] can cause everything from asthma to cancer to death," said Freedman, who is currently studying a potential link between autism and metal imbalances in children. "But they are one of the things people haven't looked at yet... and aren't high on the [Environmental Protection Agency] hit list."
Although the United States has successfully tightened environmental regulation in recent years, high growth areas like RTP pose special threats to the surrounding environment and the health of their residents, several researchers said.
"Nationally, air is getting cleaner, but there is potentially some health impact locally from growth that outpaces our attempts to keep the air clean," Costa said.
Freedman pointed to a 1996 report in Environmental Health Perspectives that compared the blood levels of various toxic elements in 1980s Mexico City residents to those who had died before the city's decades-long industrial boom. The study found a 10- to 50-fold increase in the levels of transitions metals, suggesting an identical danger for a high-growth area like RTP.
Costa, who helped develop EPA policy on the World Trade Center cleanup, stressed that environmental degradation can only be combated through the cooperation of government and the individual. The responsibility of the state lies in encouraging car-pooling and developing convenient mass transit systems, he argued, as well as working with environmental agencies on regulation. Miranda added that there also exists a need for family education to change behavior that may add to pollution around the home.
"People's living styles contribute to pollution whenever energy is wasted," Costa said.
"Any kind of energy consumption eventually goes back to a source for that energy."
Costa pointed to an EPA study suggesting that a large portion of RTP pollutants are nitrogen dioxide emissions from sport utility vehicles, which do not meet the same environmental criteria as other automobiles. "Particles in the air associated with these vehicles have been major factors in the pollution in the [RTP] area," he said.
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