We do not usually notice how environmental pollution affects our daily lives, but there are studies that do and whose conclusions leave us ice cream, especially when it comes to children, more vulnerable to pollution.
A study conducted in Barcelona led by researchers from CREAL, an allied center of ISGlobal, provides new evidence on the neurological effects of air pollution in schoolchildren. They conclude that traffic pollution affects children's cognitive development.
They studied a cohort of 2,618 elementary students from 39 schools in Barcelona, with an average age of 8.5 years to analyze the effects of suspended particles (PM), that is, those that float in the air, such as smoke And the dust They focused on those particles with a diameter of less than 2.5 microns (PM2.5), which due to their small size pose a greater health risk.
According to the results of the investigation, published in Environmental Health Perspectives, an increase of 4 microg / m3 of PM2.5 inside schools due to nearby traffic was associated with annual growth reductions of 22% in the case of working memory and 30% in higher working memory. Regarding the scale of lack of attention, the differences over a year reached 11%.
"Therefore, reducing air pollution from traffic in primary schools can have very beneficial effects on cognition", concludes Jordi Sunyer, co-director of CREAL and coordinator of the study. Will we have smoke-free school zones in the future?
