May 2015
Exposure to high levels of pollution can have a significant impact on fetal growth and development. That’s the conclusion of a recent study in Environmental Health Perspectives, co-authored by Jim Zhang, professor of global and environmental health.
The study found that women who were pregnant during the 2008 Beijing Olympics, when pollution levels were reduced by the Chinese government, gave birth to children with higher birth weights compared to those who were pregnant before and after the games.
“The results of this study demonstrate a clear association between changes in air pollutant concentrations and birth weight,” said lead author David Rich, an epidemiologist at the University of Rochester Medical Center. “These findings not only illustrate one of the many significant health consequences of pollution, but also demonstrate that this phenomenon can be reversed.”
POLLUTION CONTROL MEASURES CREATED A “NATURAL EXPERIMENT”
In the months leading up to and during the 2008 Beijing Olympics and Paralympics, the Chinese government launched a series of aggressive measures to improve the city’s chronic and notoriously poor air quality. These measures included an aggressive program to curtail pollution by implementing strict restrictions on automobile and truck use, closing factories, halting construction projects and seeding clouds to induce rainfall.
These controls—which were subsequently relaxed upon completion of the games—produced a significant decrease in the concentrations of particulate and gaseous air pollution for a 6-7 week period during the Olympic games, including a 60 percent reduction in sulfur dioxide, a 48 percent reduction in carbon monoxide, a 43 percent reduction in nitrogen dioxide, and a reduction in particles smaller than 2.5 microns in diameter.
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Study by DGHI’s Jim Zhang and Colleagues Links Pollution to Lower Birth Weight
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Credits: Duke Global Health Institute