While exposure to air pollution causes adverse health effects in most people, children are especially susceptible.
Children spend more time engaged in vigorous activity.
Such activity results in more air, and therefore more pollution, being taken deep into the lungs. Nearly 24 million children under age 13 in the United States live in areas with unhealthy exposure to particulate matter. 35 Researchers with the EPA and the Harvard School of Public Health studied nearly 1850 school children in six U.S. cities. When particulate pollution increased, all children suffered symptoms - even when the pollution was substantially lower than the current national danger standard. 36 Another study found that hospital admissions of children for asthma were consistently higher than average the day following elevated ozone levels.