Poor children drive city’s asthma rate, By Sumathi Reddy and Jie Jenny Zou, July 17, 2012, Wall Street Journal: “One in eight New York City children has been diagnosed with asthma, with poor children nearly twice as likely to suffer from the respiratory disease, according to a report to be posted by the city health officials on Wednesday. The report was based on a 2009 survey and is the first time the city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene has estimated the number of children with asthma. The survey of parents found that 177,000 children 12 years and younger-or 13% of children in that age group-had received an asthma diagnosis at some point in their lives…”
Category: Environment
Scientific American Series: Pollution, Poverty and People of Color
Scientific American Special Report: Pollution, Poverty, and People of Color:
- Living with Industry, By Jane Kay and Cheryl Katz (Environmental Health News), June 4, 2012, Scientific American: “From the house where he was born, Henry Clark can stand in his back yard and see plumes pouring out of one of the biggest oil refineries in the United States. As a child, he was fascinated by the factory on the hill, all lit up at night like the hellish twin of a fairy tale city. In the morning, he’d go out to play and find the leaves on the trees burned to a crisp…”
- Children at Risk, By Lindsey Konkel (Environmental Health News), June 6, 2012, Scientific American: “When doctors told Wanda Ford her 2-year-old son had lead poisoning, she never suspected that the backyard in her low-income neighborhood was the likely culprit. Ford knew that exposure to the heavy metal could be dangerous. So when she and her husband moved into the Lower Lincoln Street neighborhood, Ford, then pregnant, took steps to make sure their 100-year-old home was lead-free. ‘We never thought to test the soil – my son played in the backyard all the time,’ said Ford, whose son is now seven…”
- Don’t Drink the Water, By Liza Gross (Environmental Health News), June 12, 2012, Scientific American: “Jessica Sanchez sits on the edge of her seat in her mother’s kitchen, hands resting on her bulging belly. Eight months pregnant, she’s excited about the imminent birth of her son. But she’s scared too. A few feet away, her mother, Bertha Dias, scrubs potatoes with water she bought from a vending machine. She won’t use the tap water because it’s contaminated with nitrates…”
- A Michigan Tribe Battles a Global Corporation, By Brian Bienkowski (Environmental Health News), June 12, 2012, Scientific American: “Head in any direction on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and you will reach gushing rivers, placid ponds and lakes – both Great and small. An abundant resource, this water has nourished a small Native American community for hundreds of years. So 10 years ago, when an international mining company arrived near the shores of Lake Superior to burrow a mile under the Earth and pull metals out of ore, the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community of the Lake Superior Band of Chippewa had to stand for its rights and its water…”
- Falling into the Climate Gap, By Doug Struck (Environmental Health News), June 19, 2012, Scientific American: “The Shore Plaza East apartments have a stunning skyline view of downtown Boston across the harbor: Waves lap at the foot of the eight-story building; sailboats carve foam trails in the water. These could be million-dollar condos. But, buffeted by winds and the threat of storm-water flooding, these apartments are subsidized housing, reserved for the poor…”
- Asthma and the Inner City, By Crystal Gammon (Environmental Health News), June 20, 2012, Scientific American: “On a clear spring day, the four-year-olds laughed as they ran out on the playground at the start of morning recess. Within minutes, one boy stopped, a terrified look on his face. Brenda Crisp and her staff immediately realized what was happening: Asthma attack…”
UNICEF Report: State of the World’s Children 2012
- Make children the cornerstone of urban decision-making, urges Unicef, By Mark Tran, February 28, 2012, The Guardian: “Unicef has urged governments to put children at the heart of urban planning – and to improve services for all – since the majority of the world’s children will grow up in towns or cities rather than in rural areas. In its report, The State of the World’s Children 2012: Children in an Urban World, the UN agency said hundreds of millions of children who live in urban slums are being excluded from vital services, from clean water to education…”
- Split between rich and poor greater in cities, UNICEF reports, By Leslie Scrivener, February 28, 2012, Toronto Star: “Five-year-old Kiara appears well cared for – nicely dressed, well-fed and loved. Her hair shines. But she has worked with her family since she was three, selling trinkets in the subway trains of Buenos Aires. There have been mishaps: she has fallen onto the train tracks while playing, and last year she broke her arm in a train door. Almost half the world’s children live in cities. Their families are lured from their rural homes, hoping to find jobs for themselves and education for their children. It doesn’t always work out that way. ‘It’s heartbreaking for parents,’ says David Morley, president and CEO of UNICEF Canada. ‘They don’t want their children working on the street. They wish they had enough.’ In its annual report, released on Tuesday, UNICEF explores the struggles faced by families raising their offspring in the world’s slums, where one in three city-dwellers now live…”
- World’s slum children in desperate need, UNICEF says, By Robyn Dixon, February 28, 2012, Los Angeles Times: “You see them, night and day, in nearly every African city. They are ragged children dodging between the cars: beggars, shoeshine boys, teenage prostitutes, petty traders and porters carrying loads on their heads with thin, pinched faces and anxious eyes. They tap on car windows, begging, and wait by the highway desperate to sell their goods. Around half the people in the world live in cities and towns, a billion of them children, as the urban population spirals. Millions of children live in slums and shantytowns and they’re dying of the same illnesses that kill the rural poor, according to UNICEF: hunger, diarrhea and disease caused by poor sanitation and overcrowding…”