As part of President Obama’s Climate Change Action Plan, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today issued a proposed rule designed to reduce the amount of carbon emissions from power plants 30% by 2030. High levels of air pollution are associated with making asthma symptoms worse.[1] African Americans suffer disproportionately from asthma and other diseases and conditions worsened by carbon pollution. The rates of hospitalizations and deaths due to asthma are both 3 times higher among African Americans than among whites.[2] Black children visited the emergency department for asthma at a rate 260% higher that white children, had a 250% higher hospitalization rate, and had a 500% higher death rate from asthma, than white children.[3] Hopefully, when the EPA’s rule is finalized, the reduction of carbon emissions over time will reduce the disproportionate health burden suffered by African Americans from asthma.
–Janell Mayo Duncan
[1] “Children’s Environmental Health Disparities: Black and African American Children and Asthma,” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, http://www.epa.gov/epahome/sciencenb/asthma/HD_AA_Asthma.pdf.
[2] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Asthma prevalence, health care use and mortality: United States, 2003-05 and Heron MP, Hoyert DL, Murphy SL, Xu JQ, Kochanek KD, Tejada-Vera B. Deaths: Final Data for 2006. National vital statistics reports; vol 57 no 14. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. 2009.
[3] “Asthma and African-Americans,” http://minorityhealth.hhs.gov/templates/content.aspx?lvl=3&lvlID=532&ID=6170.