Exposures to environmental pollutants during windows of developmental vulnerability in early life can cause disease and death in infancy and childhood as well as chronic, non-communicable diseases that may manifest at any point across the life span. Patterns of pollution and pollution-related disease change as countries move through economic development. Environmental pollution is now recognized as a major cause of morbidity and mortality in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). According to the World Health Organization, pollution is responsible for 8.9 million deaths around the world each year; of these, 94% (8.4 million) are in LMICs. Toxic chemical pollution is growing into a major threat to children’s health in LMICs. The disease and disability caused by environmental pollution have great economic costs, and these costs can undercut trajectories of national development. To combat pollution, improved programs of public health and environmental protection are needed in countries at every level of development. Pollution control strategies and technologies that have been developed in high-income countries must now be transferred to LMICs to assist these emerging economies to avoid the mistakes of the past. A new international clearinghouse is needed to define and track the health effects of pollution, quantify the economic costs of these effects, and direct much needed attention to environmental pollution as a risk factor for disease.
1Hazardous Substances Research Branch, Superfund Research Program, National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, Research Triangle Park, USA; 2Department of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, Ghaem Hospital, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran; 3Water Research Institute, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, Accra, Ghana; 4Institute for Health and the Environment, University at Albany, Rensselaer, New York, USA; 5Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí, San Luis Potosí, Mexico; 6Department of Preventive Medicine, Ewha Womans University School of Medicine, Seoul, Republic of Korea; 7Shantou University Medical College, Shantou, China; 8Faculty of Health Sciences, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada; 9Chulabhorn Research Institute, Bangkok, Thailand; 10Department of Pediatrics, School of Medicine, University of Caxias do Sul, Caxias do Sul, Brazil; 11Children’s Health and Environment Program, Queensland Children’s Medical Research Institute, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia; 12Centro Infant, Biomedical Research Institute, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil; 13Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences, Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands; 14Department of Paediatrics and Child Health, Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital, MRC Unit on Child and Adolescent Health, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, Republic of South Africa; 15Arnhold Global Health Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York, USA.
Recommended Citation:
William A. Suk,1 Hamid Ahanchian,2 Kwadwo Ansong Asante,et al. Environmental Pollution: An Under-recognized Threat to Children’s Health, Especially in Low- and Middle-Income Countries[J]. Environmental Health Perspectives,2016-01-01,Volume 124(Issue 3):A41