Moore Roberta J H, Hotchkiss Julie L
Park Pride, 233 Peachtree Street NE, Suite 1600, Atlanta, GA 30303, USA.
Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta and Georgia State University, 1000 Peachtree St NE, Atlanta, GA 30309, USA.
Environ Pollut. 2016 Sep;216:616-623. doi: 10.1016/j.envpol.2016.06.022. Epub 2016 Jun 21.
Respiratory diseases, exacerbated through point source pollution, are currently among the leading causes of hospitalization of children in the United States. This paper investigates the relationship between the proximity of hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) emitted from Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) facilities and the number of children diagnosed in hospitals with a respiratory disease in Tennessee. The importance of controlling for toxicity of those HAPs is of particular interest. Hospital discharge, socioeconomic, TRI emission, and HAP toxicity data are used to estimate, via Generalized Linear Methods, a logistic regression model describing the relationship between the percent of children living in a zip code area treated for respiratory illness and the average annual emissions over the previous 10 years of HAPs from TRI sites in that area. Controlling for area socioeconomic characteristics, we find that accounting for toxicity is important in uncovering the relationship between HAP emissions and respiratory health of children. A one standard deviation increase in toxicity-weighted emissions per 100 square miles is associated with an increase in the number of children diagnosed with asthma (chronic bronchitis) by about 1205 (260). The evidence suggests that, with a goal to improving children's respiratory health, monitoring the toxicity of chemicals being emitted is at least as important as simply monitoring total emission levels. This suggests that the EPA should consider making efforts toward establishing toxicity adjusted emission guidelines.
呼吸系统疾病因点源污染而加剧，目前是美国儿童住院的主要原因之一。本文研究了有毒物质排放清单（TRI）设施排放的有害空气污染物（HAPs）的 proximity 与田纳西州医院诊断出患有呼吸系统疾病的儿童数量之间的关系。控制这些 HAPs 的毒性的重要性尤其令人关注。医院出院、社会经济、TRI 排放和 HAP 毒性数据通过广义线性方法用于估计一个逻辑回归模型，该模型描述了居住在邮政编码区域的儿童因呼吸系统疾病接受治疗的百分比与该区域 TRI 站点过去 10 年 HAPs 的平均年排放量之间的关系。在控制区域社会经济特征的情况下，我们发现考虑毒性对于揭示 HAP 排放与儿童呼吸健康之间的关系很重要。每 100 平方英里毒性加权排放量增加一个标准差，与被诊断患有哮喘（慢性支气管炎）的儿童数量增加约 1205（260）相关。证据表明，为了改善儿童的呼吸健康，监测排放化学品的毒性至少与简单监测总排放水平一样重要。这表明美国环境保护局应考虑努力制定毒性调整后的排放指南。
