Assessment of the health benefits to children of a transportation climate policy in New York City

Autor: Kaitlyn E. Coomes, Jonathan J. Buonocore, Jonathan I. Levy, Calvin Arter, Saravanan Arunachalam, Laura Buckley, Alique Berberian, Jonathan Gunasti, Frederica Perera
Rok vydání: 2022
Předmět:
Zdroj: Environmental research. 215(Pt 3)
ISSN: 1096-0953
Popis: Assessments of health and environmental effects of clean air and climate policies have revealed substantial health benefits due to reductions in air pollution, but have included few pediatric outcomes or assessed benefits at the neighborhood level.We estimated benefits across a suite of child health outcomes in 42 New York City (NYC) neighborhoods under the proposed regional Transportation and Climate Initiative. We also estimated their distribution across racial/ethnic and socioeconomic groups.We estimated changes in ambient fine particulate matter (PMThe benefits varied widely over the different cap-and-investment scenarios. For a 25% reduction in carbon emissions from 2022 to 2032 and a strategy prioritizing public transit investments, NYC would have an estimated 48 fewer medical visits for childhood asthma, 13,000 avoided asthma exacerbations not requiring medical visits, 640 fewer respiratory illnesses unrelated to asthma, and 9 avoided adverse birth outcomes (infant mortality, preterm birth, and term low birth weight) annually, starting in 2032. The total estimated annual avoided costs are $22 million. City-wide, Black and Hispanic children would experience 1.7 times the health benefits per capita than White and Non-Hispanic White children, respectively. Under the same scenario, neighborhoods experiencing the highest poverty rates in NYC would experience about 2.5 times the health benefits per capita than the lowest poverty neighborhoods.A cap-and-invest strategy to reduce carbon emissions from the transportation sector could provide substantial health and monetized benefits to children in NYC through reductions in criteria pollutant concentrations, with greater benefits among Black and Hispanic children.
Databáze: OpenAIRE