Linking Traffic and Distance to Roads with Pollution and Health Effects

For more than 20 years, STI has worked with university and government researchers to evaluate how air pollution affects lung function, respiratory diseases, cardiovascular disease, birth outcomes, and other health outcomes in both children and adults. As a small sampling of the many findings these studies have generated, STI scientists, together with our collaborators, have shown that:
Illustrations of near-road and traffic-related health and air quality impacts:
- Pregnant women who resided within approximately 300 m of a freeway either during their last trimester of pregnancy, or at the time they delivered, gave birth to children who were at twice the average risk of being autistic.
- Children who lived within 500 m of a freeway from ages 10 to 18 experienced substantial deficits in lung function development compared to similarly aged children who lived at least 1500 m from a freeway.
- Living near a freeway is a strong predictor of traffic-related pollution (TRP). Compared with living at least 1500 m from a freeway, living within 250 m of a freeway was associated with up to a 41% increase in TRP in a large urban area, and up to a 75% increase in small urban areas. Thus, traffic strongly affects local air quality in large and small urban areas.
Illustrations of near-road and traffic-related health and air quality impacts:
- Residential Proximity to Freeways and Autism in the CHARGE Study
- Effect of Exposure to Traffic on Lung Development from 10 to 18 Years of Age: A Cohort Study
- Traffic, Susceptibility, and Childhood Asthma
- Predictors of Intra-Community Variation in Air Quality
- Prospective Analysis of Traffic Exposure as a Risk Factor for Incident Coronary Heart Disease: The Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) Study
- Exposure to Traffic: Lung Function and Health Status in Adults with Asthma