Don't Breathe Easy

NYT reports on a new study looking at Bronx schoolchildren's exposure to pollution and its impact on their asthma. The picture is not pretty. In the Bronx, there are 9.3 asthma-related hospital admissions annually per 1,000 children. And in Harlem, which has one of the country's highest asthma rates, a 2003 study found one in four children has asthma. Nationally, asthma is the leading cause of missed days of school, accounting for nearly 15 million missed school days annually. Asthma rates are increasing. And, disadvantaged kids, because of lack of access to health care, poor housing, and living in polluted urban areas, are among those who experience the most severe consequences from asthma, exacerbating achievement gaps.

Negative consequences from asthma are particularly frustrating because a lot of asthma-related problems could be prevented if more children had proper preventative health care to manage their asthma. Teaching kids to manage their asthma is relatively cheap. Uninsured kids winding up in the emergency room when they have an asthma attack is expensive. The costs of missed school days and difficulty learning because you can't breathe are harder to estimate, but kids and society pay for them as well.