4 days ago
Potential connection between air quality in the Mon Valley and student absenteeism
Experts are examining the potential connection between air quality in the Mon Valley and student absenteeism.
Could the empty desks in Clairton's classrooms be linked to what's happening in the air outside? A new study attributes air pollution in the Mon Valley to school absenteeism.
"They're missing school and they're falling behind their classmates," said Dr. Deborah Gentile, medical director of Community Partners in Asthma Care and author of the study. "It can have an impact on them getting into post-secondary education for anything really, trades versus college, and even impact their likelihood of getting a good-paying job in the future."
U.S. Steel's Clairton Coke Works is less than 1 mile from Clairton's K-12 school building, where Gentile's 2020 study found one in every five kids had developed asthma, three times higher than the national rate. Using that data, Gentile now details how absenteeism spiked after days of high particulate pollution, called PM2.5.
"A day or two later, we saw in a day following PM2.5 increases, we saw a 21% increase in the risk of these children missing school because of asthma," Gentile said.
In a statement, U.S. Steel said the study is full of "spurious claims leading to what appears to be predetermined and questionable conclusions aimed at making headlines."
The steelmaker calls Gentile's data "stale" — health records gathered from 2015 to 2018 predate U.S. Steel's shutdown of four coke batteries and tens of millions of dollars in newer pollution controls, which it says have dramatically reduced emissions, putting the plant in attainment of federal particulate standards.
But the Allegheny County Health Department has continued to cite and fine U.S. Steel for exceedances in sulfur dioxide, and another study might argue that even greater emission reductions could reduce cases of childhood asthma.
"We obtained the health data before for the community surrounding the Shenango plant, which is in the Ohio River, right near Pittsburgh," Dr. George Thurston said.
Thurston, a medical doctor and professor of environmental medicine at New York University Grossman School of Medicine, looked at Neville Island's air pollution and emergency room data before and after the Shenango Coke Works closed.
"In there, among the respiratory, a very decisive drop in pediatric emergency department visits to hospitals right immediately after the closure," Thurston said.
In the month after the plant closed on Jan. 6, 2016, the number of pediatric emergency room visits for asthma plummeted by 41 percent compared to the month before.
"I wasn't expecting a drop so large that you can just look at visually and see," Thurston said.
And when kids are in the emergency room dealing with their asthma, they are not in the classroom, and the NYU study could be a lesson for Clairton.
"The results of our study would be very applicable to the Clairton communities, and very useful, I think, to understand that if the Clairton plant were to reduce its emissions, then it's highly probable, I would say certain, that there would be health benefits to the community around it," Thurston said.
