A recent study found poor air quality led to longer hospital stays for children with asthma.
The study, published June 21 in the Journal of Asthma, examined medical records of nearly 2,000 children with asthma from 2017 to 2019 living in New York City. Two stationary air monitors within five miles of where children lived tracked fine particulate matter and ozone, pollutants harmful when inhaled.
Researchers found children's hospital stays increased by 10 percent for every 10 micrograms of ambient pollutants per cubic meter. The 10 percent increase translated to roughly 10 more hours in the hospital.
"Length of stay can be an indication of severity of illness in pediatrics: The worse that you are, the longer the length of stay," Elissa Gross, DO, a pediatric hospitalist at New York City-based Children's Hospital at Montefiore and Albert Einstein College of Medicine professor, who led the study alongside researchers from the City University of New York and Mount Sinai's Icahn School of Medicine, told lohud. "But length of stay also has a lot of far-reaching impacts. The longer you're hospitalized, you have more missed school days and more missed work days. That really impacts the family and increases stress."
The New York City Health Department estimated 2,300 people die annually in New York City due to effects caused by current fine particulate matter levels.