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Air Pollution

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Air pollution has been an ongoing issue for decades. With a vast amount of causes, such as: burning fossil fuel, manufacturing, and wildfires; it is hard to completely eliminate air pollution, but something can be done to lessen the severity of air pollution. Long exposure to poor air quality leaves the human respiratory system at risk.
Air pollution can affect those with asthma, especially children. Researchers did a test to see whether air pollution caused by vehicles was a factor that affected the respiratory system of children, ages ten to eighteen (Jerrett et al., 2008). They gathered a selection of children and tested the air in their surrounding area as well as recorded data regarding any effects the air around them had placed on …show more content…

Although children are more prone to getting asthma attacks or developing asthma at a young age, adults still have a likelihood of developing asthma even if their body is fully developed.
Severe air pollution and long exposures to air pollution can lead to people developing lung cancer. A research study was done in several European countries to see if air pollution was actually a factor that caused lung cancer (Raaschou-Nielsen et al., 2013). What they found had supported my hypothesis; they found that air pollution in fact, did have a relation to people’s development of lung cancer. The more one is exposed to air pollution, the higher their risk is of developing lung cancer because of all the amount of particulate matter in the air. In addition, a different group of researchers tested a similar theory in Canada, but they went more in-depth and wanted to know what type of gases and/or chemicals, specifically, caused lung cancer (Hystad et al., 2013). They found that the leading cause of lung cancer from air pollution, was from long exposure to nitrogen dioxide, which is commonly found near highways because of automobiles. The closer the people lived near highways, the more lung damage they got from being exposed to such chemicals and gases from automobiles more frequently. Correspondingly, a few years back, Michael Jerrett and his colleagues studied the same factors in Canada as well.

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