New Study Shows Childhood Asthma Due to Living Near Major Roadways Cost Los Angeles Residents $441 Million in 2007 Alone

In the report published in the November issue of The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, a team of researchers led by Sylvia Brandt, associate professor of public policy and resource economics at UMass Amherst, calculated the total costs that asthma imposes on children and families living within 75 meters of freeways, highways and major arterial roads, including the direct costs of medical care and the problem of having to manage and live with the disease. They also measured the specific impact of two forms of air pollution on those costs: the pollution that comes from living near a major roadway and higher levels of ground-level ozone (O3) or nitrogen dioxide (NO2).

In a previous study published in 2012, Brandt and her team had found that living near a major roadway causes new cases of childhood asthma, while regional air pollutants such as NO2 and O3 trigger breathing problems in children who suffer from asthma. In the latest study, they found that these factors together impose tremendous economic costs on asthma sufferers, their families and their communities. In Los Angeles County in 2007 alone, the burden of childhood asthma was approximately $3,000 per affected child, and all cases of asthma created a total cost of $441 million to the county. Because 32 percent of children in L.A. County are covered by public health insurance, an equivalent proportion of those direct costs are borne by taxpayers. Since many children live near major roadways throughout the United States, and the study’s results are relevant to other large urban areas, the authors estimate that their findings about local spending imply billions of dollars are spent annually on a national scale.