Team to study effect of air quality on lungs

Health and education experts are teaming up to study the effect of air quality on the lung function of elementary-age children in Cache County.

Monday, the Bear River Health Department, the Utah Asthma Task Force, and parents, educators and students at Greenville Elementary School in North Logan kicked off a lung-function study. Each school day, interns from Utah State University and folks from the health department will test the lungs of more than 100 student volunteers just before they head outside to play and right after, said Dr. Edward Redd, health department deputy director. The study also includes documenting the difference in air quality outdoors and in the school.

Half the children in the study have asthma and half don't. By next fall, officials hope to have some solid answers on what impact air quality has on children's respiratory health.

For years, pediatricians and health officials have wondered how much 15 to 30 minutes outdoors in poor-quality air affects a child's lung function. But there is little actual research to fall back on. In 2004, health officials issued some guidance to schools, suggesting students should remain indoors during days with very poor air quality. But health and school officials also recognize the importance of getting outside and playing hard from an exercise and brain-stimulation perspective.

The study is one of several attempts to understand children and air quality, with an eye to guiding policy, said Libbey Chuy, health program specialist in the Utah Department of Health's asthma program.

From December 2004 to March 2005, similar measurements were taken at Hawthorne Elementary in Salt Lake City, where the Department of Environmental Quality already had an air-quality monitor placed. They added other monitors inside the school. Their efforts showed air quality inside was about three times better than that outdoors, Chuy says.

Last year, from January to March, two pediatricians led an effort to measure the lung function of about 60 students before and after playing outside at Hawthorne. The results should be available soon, Chuy said.

Parents were so interested in having their children participate in the North Logan study that the number of participants had to be capped, Redd said, in part because of manpower and time constraints. They have two minutes before and after the lunch recess with each student to get the respiratory data.