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Sarnia children more likely to get asthma than London, Windsor kids: Study

Kids born in Sarnia have a higher risk of developing asthma compared to those in London and Windsor, a new study by Western University and Lawson Health Research Institute researchers says.

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The results come after researchers spent 10 years following nearly 115,000 children born in the three Southwestern Ontario cities between 1993 and 2009, finding children born in Sarnia were at a higher risk of developing the chronic respiratory disease.

Distroscale

Chalk up the results to higher pollution levels in Sarnia, home to Ontario’s so-called Chemical Valley, a hub for petrochemical plants and oil refineries, researchers say.

“It’s known that cities in Southwestern Ontario have varied levels of air pollution because of differences in industry and traffic,” Dr. Dhenuka Radhakrishnan, a pediatric respirologist and director of the asthma program at Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario in Ottawa, said in a statement.

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“We wanted to see if children born in three cities – London, Windsor and Sarnia – had a different risk of developing asthma due to the differing air pollution levels in the three regions, even though the people living in these cities are otherwise comparable in many ways.”

According to their findings, 24 per cent of children in Sarnia were diagnosed with asthma by the age of 10. That compared to 21 per cent in Windsor and 17 per cent in London.

Similar results were also found when accounting for other risk factors associated with asthma, such as sex, socioeconomic status and urban versus rural settings, researchers said.

On the plus side, researchers say the risk for children developing asthma, one of the most common chronic diseases in Canadian children, has been decreasing in recent years as pollution levels also go down.

“This study suggests that reducing air pollution exposure, including environmental causes, might reduce the number of children who suffer from asthma and asthma attacks,” said Dr. Salimah Shariff, an associate scientist at Lawson and professor at Western’s Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry.

There’s also evidence to suggest that exposure to high levels of pollution can influence the development of asthma in children, underscoring the importance of finding ways to reduce air pollution within certain geographical areas, Shariff said.

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