Texas Department of State Health Services, Prevalence Estimates of Childhood Asthma in Texas: Children Living Near Selected Superfund Sites Compared to Texas Children, Prepared by Ruggiere Paul, Sterling, David, Tiwari, Chetan. November 13, 2014. Date accessed, September 27, 2015 https://www.dshs.state.tx.us/asthma/data.shtm
This article set out to find out whether or not there was any correlation between childhood and lifetime asthma prevalence and growing up near hazardous waste sites. The study relied on self-reported surveys to collect information. The results indicated that living near a waste site did not increase the prevalence of asthma, though the study also documented factors about quality of life with asthma, such as days missed from work or school due to illness.
The authors of this article are all professors at the University of North Texas. Dr. Chetan Tiwari is a professor at the UNT School of Geography, works as a medical geographer and specializes in disease mapping. Dr David Sterling is a professor of public health at UNT. This indicates that this article must have been a collaboration with UNT.
The main finding of this article is that living within a 1.5 mile radius of a hazardous waste facility does not increase the prevalence of asthma compared to those living far away from a waste site. Other findings showed that over half of school children missed at least one day of school in the past twelve months due to asthma symptoms, that a quarter of children had to go to the ER for asthma-related symptoms, and that boys are more likely than girls to have asthma.
13.1% of children surveyed near waste sites had asthma, versus 11.7% of those surveyed in the rest of Texas, so the one percent difference was not enough to imply a significant statistical difference. The study also collected data on children who currently have asthma, and found near identical numbers for those within the 1.5 mile radius and those outside of it (8.9% vs 9.1%, respectively), which also implies that there is no significant statistical difference. Finally, the gender difference in asthma prevalence is supported by data that shows that 14.6% of male children surveyed had asthma at some point in their lives, versus 9.7% of female children. The difference of almost 5% is viewed as statistically significant in the report.
1. “13.1% of children surveyed near waste sites had asthma, versus 11.7% of those surveyed in the rest of Texas, so the one percent difference was not significant enough to imply a difference.”
2. “As seen in Table 17, living near a Superfund site was not associated with the age of onset of asthma. In both groups, age of onset was typically between 0 and 4 years of age, and as age increased, asthma was less likely to be diagnosed.”
3. “ As has been seen in other studies,22,1 gender, race, and age all demonstrated statistically significant differences in the lifetime prevalence of asthma. Boys were more likely to have been diagnosed with asthma than girls.”
They would survey families within and outside a 1.5 mile radius of nine hazardous waste sites, which include refineries and wood treating facilities. They would either mail a questionnaire to families, or conduct a survey over the phone. There was a Spanish language option as well for ESL families. Families that had no children were disqualified from participating in the survey. Questions were asked about asthma, severity, and age of onset, as well as questions about race, gender, and income, among other things.
Health disparities are addressed by asking what asthma medications and insurance everyone has. It asks what percentage of people surveyed overall have rescue inhalers and long term inhalers, and whether or not the children are allowed to use it at school without the need of an adult in the event of a flare-up. It also asks about health care coverage, and the source of it, such as whether or not its provided by an employer or through Medicaid.
Since this article was published in November of 2014, it has yet to be referenced or cited in any other scholarly articles or government reports.
Some of the papers cited by this report are from the CDC and provide information and guidelines on conducting the surveys. Other papers that are referenced in the paper include the 2010 Texas Asthma Burden Report and reports from around the country and the world that describe and indicate asthma trends and costs. This means that there was collaboration with the CDC in borrowing some of their information and guidelines for conducting phone surveys. In using multiple papers about the burden of asthma, this paper also wanted to prove a point about how much asthma is costing the state of Texas.
I first looked into the first citation listed in the bibliography, which is the National Health Interview Survey to see what questions it asked (http://www.cdc.gov/asthma/nhis/default.htm).Next, I decided to look at the Texarkana Wood Preserving Co., one of the superfund sites used as a location in the paper, to see what chemicals the site was letting run into the environment. This site was leeching pentachlorophenol into the soil and ground water, which is a problem since pentachlorophenol is biocidal and harmful to the lungs. The EPA has been attempting to clean up the site after it was shut down in 1984 (http://www.epa.gov/region6/6sf/pdffiles/texarkana-wood-tx.pdf). Finally, the report also came with the questionnaire that was used to gather data about asthma. It does share many questions in common with some of the surveys offered by the CDC and TDSHS.
https://www.dshs.state.tx.us/asthma/data.shtm
This article set out to find out whether or not there was any correlation between childhood and lifetime asthma prevalence and growing up near hazardous waste sites. The study relied on self-reported surveys to collect information. The results indicated that living near a waste site did not increase the prevalence of asthma, though the study also documented factors about quality of life with asthma, such as days missed from work or school due to illness.
2. “As seen in Table 17, living near a Superfund site was not associated with the age of onset of asthma. In both groups, age of onset was typically between 0 and 4 years of age, and as age increased, asthma was less likely to be diagnosed.”
3. “ As has been seen in other studies,22,1 gender, race, and age all demonstrated statistically significant differences in the lifetime prevalence of asthma. Boys were more likely to have been diagnosed with asthma than girls.”