Geographic and disability differences in exposure risks to ambient air respiratory toxicants at children’s public schools in the United States
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Few published studies have investigated the exposure risks to ambient air respiratory toxicants at children’s public schools on a national level. Currently, more than 90% of children, including those with disabilities, attend regular public schools. Schoolchildren can be exposed to ambient air respiratory toxicants from stationary, mobile, fire, and/or biogenic sources. Concerns have been raised about schoolchildren’s potential exposures and unique vulnerabilities to these toxicants, particularly children with disabilities. The objectives were to evaluate the estimated exposure risks to ambient air respiratory toxicants at each regular public school and to evaluate disability status at schools having higher exposure risks. We matched geographic location and disability status data at each regular public school (n=88,337) with hazard indexes (HI) for 42 air respiratory toxicants at the census tract level from the 2018 USEPA’s Air Toxics Screening Assessment. Preliminary results showed that 150 schools (<1%) were in 79 census tracts with HI above 1 (increased potential for adverse health effects) with 81% of these schools in California, Colorado, and Louisiana. Using a Chi-square test, we compared the proportion of disabled students in the top 5% of public schools within census tracts that have HI > 0.48 to the overall proportion of disabled students in all public schools. Statistical results showed that the overall population of disabled students were at a significantly higher risk (p<0.001) than those in census tracts with an HI above 0.48. We found varied state eligibility criteria for disabled schoolchildren, and this suggests the need for more consistent national-scale data.