Air Pollution and Children's Health in Chinese

Abstract

Children can be considered as a high-risk population to environmental stress since some of the organ systems including the immune system and respiratory system are still in development during childhood. During childhood, the impact of environmental pollutants exposure may program child growth and development that have long-term consequences on later health and disease risk. Considering the rapid economic growth in recent decades in China, the impact of ambient air pollution on children health causes concerns. Therefore, we aimed to review the current epidemiological evidence on the effects of air pollution exposure on adverse health outcome, including respiratory diseases, lung function, high blood pressure, cognitive disorder, and obesity in childhood in China. We believe that the findings summarized in our review demonstrate an unequivocal relationship between air pollutants exposure and Chinese children health and these results have large public health influences.

Keywords: Ambient air pollution; Children; Chinese.