Air Heads Polluting Our Brains

Even though that strange maple syrup scent that pervaded the air a few months back has left, our fair city’s less-than-fair air may be making our kids dumber. A new Columbia University study, which tracked 183 3-year-olds from Harlem, Washington Heights, and the South Bronx, finds that kiddies exposed to high levels of air pollution in the womb have higher rates of mental deficiencies. Women in the study were asked to wear air pollution monitors while pregnant and levels of exposure were correlated with their kids’ performance on cognitive tests. Not surprisingly, kids who were exposed to the highest level of pollution (mostly caused by vehicle exhaust) did worse than their counterparts who were exposed to less. This is worrisome as these deficiencies may translate into later difficulties in reading and math when the tots finally get to school.

This is actually groundbreaking stuff because while we’ve known for sometime that certain environmental exposures such as radiation, drugs, and viruses affected fetal brain development, there was no research confirming the same of pollution. All is not lost though, as the results will help teachers and doctors identify at-risk kids earlier and intervene sooner. This may not, however, console uptown parents who are not happy with the study results.

Photograph from the NYC Department of Transportation; graphic from New York Post.