Streetsblog Capitol Hill

One more reason to reduce driving: Exposure to high levels of traffic pollutants may increase the risk that children will develop autism, according to a study published recently in the Archives of General Psychology.

A new study found that living near areas with high levels of traffic pollution during pregnancy and the first year of life is linked to an elevated risk of autism. Photo: Google Maps

Researchers from the University of California Keck School of Medicine examined traffic-related air pollution levels in two groups of children: 279 with autism and 245 without. The study found that autistic children and their mothers were twice as likely to live in high-pollution areas during pregnancy and the first year of life, controlling for other factors.

One in 88 children in the U.S. is affected by autism.

Researchers have been looking at a potential link between air pollution and the enigmatic developmental disorder for three years. Fine particle pollution and nitrogen dioxide — two of the leading pollutants emitted by internal combustion vehicles — affect the behavior of certain genes in the early stages of development. One of these genes is known to be less active in children with autism, according to a report on the study published on WebMD.

There is a growing consensus that autism is caused by a combination of environmental and genetic factors. In reviewing the study, Andrew Adesman, MD, at Cohen Children’s Medical Center of New York, said that traffic-related air pollution is likely one of many contributing factors, WebMD reports.

Traffic congestion, air pollution, and lack of mobility disproportionately harm the poor in the developing world when transportation investments favor automobiles. Photo: Owni

If you think the United States is doing a bad job shifting toward sustainable transportation, take a look at the developing world. The places with the most to lose from auto-oriented development are doubling down on it — to the enormous detriment of their citizens, especially the poorest.

The number of cars in the world is expect to grow as much as 375 percent by 2050. Road fatalities in low- and middle-income countries are expected to rise by 80 percent just over the next eight years, with pedestrians, cyclists, and other vulnerable users making up about half those deaths. Harmful air pollutants that already cause 1.3 million premature deaths each year, mostly in developing and middle-income countries, will rise. And carbon dioxide emissions from transport could grow 300 percent over 2005 levels by 2050 — with most of the growth, again, coming from the developing world.

The energy consumed by the transportation sector globally more than doubled between 1970 and 2005. Source: Worldwatch Institute.

Michael Replogle and Colin Hughes warn of these dire outcomes in their article on sustainable transportation for the 2012 State of the World report, published by the Worldwatch Institute. While international climate change agreements have historically overlooked the transportation sector, the authors note some promising changes afoot as international development banks seek to add transit projects to their portfolios.

Replogle and Hughes frame transportation policy in terms of both sustainability and equity. The urban poor lose out disproportionately when car-oriented infrastructure dominates, they note, since the lack of affordable transportation forces them “to choose between low incomes in informal sector employment close to affordable housing and higher-wage jobs that force them to spend a large share of their income and hours each day commuting.”

Compounding the inequity, fossil fuel subsidies disproportionately allocate public funds to the wealthy, the authors report: “The International Energy Agency estimates that only eight percent of the $409 billion that the world spent in 2010 to subsidize fossil fuel consumption (about half of which is used for transport) went to the poorest 20 percent of the population.”

Unfortunately, say Replogle and Hughes, international agreements on poverty reduction and climate change have largely ignored transportation. Even the Agenda 21 agreement, a bogeyman among far-right cranks, included “no targets, goals, commitments, or other forms of accountability” for sustainable transport.

Read more…

We all know regular TV-watching is a risk factor for obesity and associated health problems. Also, recent studies shined a light on the role of sedentary jobs.

That long car commute could be destroying your health. Photo: AOL News

Less attention has been paid to the threat of the lengthy car commute. But a new study [PDF] from the Center for Disease Control, National Institutes of Health and American Cancer Society is confirming what many have long suspected: lengthy car commutes are terrible for your health.

A study of more than 4,000 residents of greater Dallas found that those who commute more than 15 miles by car get less exercise and have larger waistlines and poorer cardiovascular health. Those who commuted more than 20 miles were also at greater risk for high blood pressure.

The results were adjusted for age, gender, education, family circumstances and health history.

One rather obvious explanation noted by researchers is that long commutes replace time that could be dedicated to exercise. The study’s authors also noted that “participants with long commutes were more likely to live in suburban neighborhoods, which often possess built environment features that are associated with physical inactivity and sedentary behavior.”

In addition, high blood pressure may also be caused by the stress of commuting, or the social isolation it produces, researchers said.