Environment

What can schools do to reduce air pollution?

New research shows air pollution’s many negative effects on schools and young people, writes Caroline Hinz, but simple, affordable steps can lead to big improvements

New research shows air pollution’s many negative effects on schools and young people, writes Caroline Hinz, but simple, affordable steps can lead to big improvements

20 Sep 2022, 5:00

Children are strongly affected by air pollution because their lungs are still developing, they breathe more deeply, and due to their size they are often closer to exhausts that emit pollution than adults. Air pollution can exacerbate and cause wheezing and asthma, cancer, and long-term exposure can result in worsening cases of lung or cardiac disease amongst many other illnesses. And if that wasn’t bad enough, a new study from the University of Washington points to evidence that air pollution also negatively impacts behaviour and cognition.    

Worse still, the school run itself accounts for 30 per cent of rush-hour traffic. So in effect, nearly one-third of the pollution children are exposed to on their way to and at school is caused by getting them there. 

My son has asthma. We live next to a busy road and his symptoms worsen noticeably during times of heavy traffic. It was in the course of researching what I could do to help ease his symptoms that I came across campaign group , Mums for Lungs. Their practical advice on measures schools can take to make the air cleaner around their estate became my rallying cry, and it is making a difference. 

But it’s important to note that change like this doesn’t just improve health outcomes for Isaac and other sufferers of lung conditions. It’s a benefit to everyone, and especially all young people. They are less likely to develop such conditions, and they can only be healthier as a result of reducing nitrogen dioxide levels that regularly exceed the legal limit set by the EU in many of our cities. Even electric cars contribute to particulate matter in the air they breathe. So it’s the whole institution of the school run that needs a rethink!

Simple messaging can make a big difference

The first and most obvious strategy is an initiative called ‘School Streets’, which has been rolled out with great success by a number of schools. The roads around a school are simply closed during pick-up and drop-off times with exemptions for residents, teachers and others who need access. This is enforced by cameras that check number plates, and fines are issued to vehicles that enter the school street without such an approved exemption. Number plate recognition cameras were previously only allowed in London for this kind of use, but legislation has recently changed so that they can be used across the UK. 

Many ‘School Streets’ schemes are enforced in my East London borough, and aside from the reduced pollution, it’s lovely to see large numbers of families walking, cycling and scooting to school, and empowered to do so by the greater safety of reduced traffic. With the support of parents and community stakeholders, local councils can deploy these schemes with relative ease.

But they may not be available to all schools, especially those on main roads. For these schools, a green screen of plants and trees along the school fence that will absorb a lot of the pollution is an affordable solution.

And even if you can get a scheme off the ground, it shouldn’t be your only measure. Other steps schools can take to protect children from air pollution range from active travel schemes encouraging families to walk/cycle/scoot to school to parent education. The latter can be particularly effective, as someone idling their engine near a school probably doesn’t realise they are contributing to a child’s asthma attack later that day. I’ve been handing out anti-idling flyers on the school run and find most people apologise and turn off their engine. Reinforced by the local school (for example with banners on the school gates and newsletter reminders to parents), simple messaging like this can make a big difference. 

In these straitened and highly-pressured times for schools, tackling pollution may feel like a low-priority activity. But parents are your strongest allies in this. Because we all want our children to be healthy, thriving and focused on learning – and it doesn’t have to cost the Earth.

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2 Comments

  1. Michael Ryan

    Schools should be especially concerned as air pollution has been shown to cause a range of adverse effects including obesity, asthma, infant mortality, low birthweight babies, and depressed IQ.

    All schools keep a record of asthma inhalers brought to school and over two decades ago, the late Dr Dick van Steenis proposed that “every county conduct a survey of primary schools to ascertain the proportion of children taking inhalers to school, and that any area with high proportions be investigated locally. This would be quick, cheap and effective.” (Airborne pollutants and acute health effects, The Lancet, 8 April 1995).

    As far as I know, no council bothered to do so. Perhaps this will change now that Sadiq Khan is mayor of London and an asthma sufferer who’s determined to tackle air pollution, but who seems to have overlooked the impact of incinerator emissions. Will Khan publish the percentages of children in Years 3 to 6 in each London school who bring in asthma inhalers?

  2. Michael Ryan

    Mums for Lungs and others should be aware of the research by Professor Frederica Perera and be concerned about asthma, obesity and reduced IQ caused by air pollution.

    I’d written to Sir Michael Wilshaw, Chief Inspector of Schools on 22 September 2016 and the text of the first page of my letter is as follows:

    “Dear Sir Michael,

    Air pollution link with reduced IQ, worse exam results and
    higher infant mortality rates are being ignored

    I’ve read in the Sunday Times (10 May 2015), Independent (15 October 2013) and other news reports about your concern at the very high infant mortality rate in Birmingham and wish to alert you to research by Professor Frederica Perera, which resulted in her being awarded $250,000 by the Heinz Foundation last year.

    “Dr. Perera’s research tracked the pre- and post-natal health of 720 mother-child pairs in New York City.
    She found that in addition to causing infant mortality, low birth weight, allergies, asthma, slower brain development and respiratory illnesses, there is also a correlation between exposure to air pollutants and childhood obesity.
    “Exposure to endocrine disruptors in the air can alter the normal hormonal signalling and affect growth and development, so there is a tendency for some children to become more obese,” said Dr. Perera who reviewed the findings of that study, first reported in 2013, at one of four public presentations by Heinz Award winners on Wednesday in Pittsburgh.
    Dr. Perera, who founded and is the director of the Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health, said Pittsburgh’s air quality remains a serious public health problem for regional residents, and noted that the region is the sixth worst nationally for airborne particle pollution.”

    http://www.post-gazette.com/news/environment/2015/05/18/Decade-long-study-wins-Heinz-Award-after-findings-include-link-between-air-pollution-obesity/stories/201505180007

    Birmingham has forty electoral wards and the four with lowest infant mortality rates for the 11-year period 2004-2014 form a single group that had minimal exposure to emissions from the Tyseley incinerator. I don’t know the childhood asthma rates for Birmingham electoral wards, or the low birthweight statistics, but the four wards with lowest infant mortality rate (Sutton Vesey, Sutton Trinity, Sutton New Hall and Sutton Four Oaks) also had the lowest proportion of obese children starting primary school (map on page 26 of report below) and also the highest “Proportion of 5 year olds achieving the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) goals 2009-2011” (page 23 in same report).

    These cannot be chance events as ONS data consistently shows elevated infant mortality rates in electoral wards exposed to incinerator emissions and also worsening of infant mortality rates at Council level after incinerators started at Edmonton, Nottingham, SELCHP, Birmingham, Dudley, Bolton, Kirklees, Stoke-on-Trent, Sheffield, Wolverhampton and Coventry.

    http://birminghampublichealth.co.uk/manager/_mods/_ckfinder/userfiles/files/BirminghamUnder%205s%20Review.pdf

    The infant mortality rates in Birmingham’s forty electoral wards range from 3.3 per 1,000 live births (10 infant deaths) in Sutton Trinity to 16.1 per 1,000 in Washwood Heath (149 infant deaths). Washwood Heath ward is heavily exposed to supposedly safe emissions from the Tyseley incinerator.

    After getting a letter from Ofsted, following mine to Sir Michael Wilshaw, telling me that air pollution wesn’t in their remit, I sent a letter to the Secretary of State for Education, with a copy to my MP. I was surprised to get an email from Danield Kawczynski’s office telling me that the DfE claimed not to have received my letter and asking if I wanted Mr Kawzynski to forward a copy to the, I eventually got a letter from DfE repeating the opinion that air pollution was outside their remit.

    The Sunday Times printed the following:

    “SOMETHING IN THE AIR

    If Sir Michael Wilshaw, the outgoing chief inspector of schools in England, is really concerned about us falling even further behind in a “premier league” of key global competitors, despite billions of pounds being spent, he should revisit my letter to him last September about air pollution causing depressed IQ and higher rates of asthma, infant mortality, low-birthweight babies and childhood obesity.

    Anything that could adversely affect the wellbeing and academic performance of schoolchildren must be within Ofsted’s remit and not passed to other government bodies that seem unaware of the current research.
    Michael Ryan, Shrewsbury”
    (Sunday Times, 11 December 2016, page 24)

    This is the text of the letter I sent:

    “If Sir Michael Wilshaw is really concerned about “teenagers faliing even further behind…..despite billions of pounds being spent” (article, 4 December 2016), he should revisit my letter of 22 September 2016 about air pollution causing depressed IQ and higher rates of asthma, infant mortality, low birthweight babies and childhood obesity.

    Anything that could adversely affect the wellbeing and academic performance of schoolchildren must be within Ofsted’s remit and not passed to Defra or Public Health England who seem unaware of the research by Professor Frederica Perera (Columbia) and Professor Paul Mohai (Michigan).”

    Professor Mohai’s team had mapped the school exam performances for all public schools in the State of Michigan and also the attendance levels, which were used as a proxy for health. They then looked at the sources of industrial air pollution and saw that the schools exposed to such pollution had worse attendance and also worse exam results.