US public schools with the highest potential exposure risk to air toxics

 have higher proportions of disabled Latino, Hispanic, and Asian children    

EPA study finds that U.S. public schools with the highest potential exposure risk to air toxics have higher proportions of disabled Latino, Hispanic, and Asian children    

Children are at greater risk from inhaled air pollutants than adults, as they have higher respiratory rates. Research has shown that air pollutants in the form of respiratory toxicants (such as some  pesticides and solvents) can represent a significant health risk to children. 

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has completed a nationwide study to assess the estimated non-cancer exposure risks of public school students to ambient air respiratory toxicants. The analysis also examined how disability status, race, and ethnicity were related to exposure risk in more than 88,000 regular public schools located in the 50 states, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico.  

Research findings will be presented in December at the annual meeting of the Society for Risk Analysis in Austin, Texas. Mariah Amter, Oakridge Institute for Science and Education Research Fellow, will present the study, “Geographic and sociodemographic disparities in estimated potential exposure risks of children to ambient air respiratory toxicants at U.S. public schools,” on December 9 at 6:00 p.m.  

The statistical analysis paired publicly available sociodemographic data for each school with respiratory hazard indexes (HI) at the census tract-level from the 2018 EPA Air Toxics Screening Assessment. Each school was ranked by its respiratory hazard index (HI), or the sum of hazard quotients for 42 different air respiratory toxicants. (The higher the HI, the greater the risk for potential adverse health effects.) The top five percent of schools were selected as “higher exposure risk schools.” 

The analysis compared the proportion of disabled children in these higher exposure risk schools to those in the rest of schools and made a similar comparison based on the racial and ethnic composition of students. 

Research findings: 

The majority of schools with the highest HI are located in California, Colorado, and Louisiana.  

The results indicate there is a significantly higher proportion of racial and ethnic minority children in “higher exposure risk schools” compared to racial and ethnic minority children in the rest of schools.   

There is a significantly higher proportion of Hispanic and Latino children in the “higher exposure risk schools” compared to the rest of schools. 

There is a higher proportion of Hispanic and Latino children with a disability in the “higher exposure risk schools” compared to the rest of schools. 

Going forward, the researchers plan to conduct a similar analysis using 2020 EPA AirToxScreen data taken at the smaller census block level and examine additional sociodemographic variables including poverty and urbanicity.