“It is so painfully obvious the systemic discrimination when I have to take care of children,” Bernstein said. He said the causes are glaringly due to structural inequities in housing, wealth and access to health care. Aaron Bernstein is the interim director of Harvard University’s Center for Climate, Health and the Global Environment. Pediatrician at Boston Children's Hospital, Dr. “As we continue to see warming and more extreme temperatures, that will only lead to more frequent asthma exacerbations,” she said. Jones sees this more commonly among her Black and Hispanic patients. Bridgette Jones, an allergist and pediatrician at Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Missouri. All of those factors make these areas hotter than other parts of a city, explained Dr. These communities also have less green spaces. That’s a particular concern for inner-city kids of formerly redlined neighborhoods because of the urban heat island effect, which occurs when certain neighborhoods are exposed to more pollution. Higher temperatures mean higher levels of ozone, a gas that forms from burning fossil fuels. Studies have shown that poorer Black children are more likely than white children to be admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit for “critical and near-fatal” childhood asthma.Īs climate change creates record-breaking temperatures that plague the nation, experts warn of disparate, worsening asthma and breathing conditions among children of color. Both are twice as likely as white children to be hospitalized for asthma. Black children are four times and Hispanics 40% more likely to die from the disease. More: People of color face disproportionate harm from climate change, EPA saysīlack and Hispanic kids disproportionately suffer from asthma. “It was so hard seeing her little body not being able to breathe,” she said. Lainisha Pounds, also a Los Angeles mom, said her daughter suffered frequent episodes of trouble breathing as a child. Similarly, her daughter was forced to running track due to her asthma. “He cannot do these certain physical activities in the sun,” Cantley said of her son, who has bronchiectasis, a chronic condition where airways widen resulting in coughing and fluid buildup. On hot sunny days, her 12-year-old son Royalty can’t play outside or join in P.E. The apartment has no air conditioning, and hot weather can exacerbate asthma and respiratory conditions. The South Los Angeles family lives in a low-income Black and brown housing community. “I thought every child had that, or every parent was experiencing that in the first stages of a newborn’s life.” Cantley always carried around breathing treatment instructions and regularly went to the hospital for her children’s treatments. Ever since they were infants, LaRae Cantley’s four children were constantly in and out of the emergency room, because they couldn’t breathe.Įach have respiratory problems, and two suffer from asthma.
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