Pensacola News Journal

Editorial series, part 5: A Call to Action

Measuring pollution’s impact
So how do scientists try to measure the impact of pollution?

They look at broad areas — such as ZIP codes — and try to draw conclusions about what they find. They use “models” that tell them what they might find given the presence of certain levels of various pollutants.

Related

* Four cancer hot spots in our area
* Editorial series, part 5: Sins of the past will haunt our future

In 2008, the first results of a University of West Florida study begun in 2002 and funded by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Centers for Disease Control reported that health problems scientists would expect to find from the kinds of air pollution found in this area match the kinds of health problems found here.

For example:
• Infant deaths from birth defects occur at a much higher rate — 1 in 432 cases — in Escambia County than in the rest of Florida, where the rate is 1 in 728.

• Escambia County has more hospitalizations from asthma than the state average, and that number is rising. In most of Florida it is falling.

• People in three areas of Santa Rosa County and one in Escambia were at risk of elevated cancer rates because of industrial emissions.

But, the study found, the people at the highest risk of health problems from pollution across the two-county area are those in areas along busy roadways, where a chemical laundry list of ground-level pollutants from car and truck exhaust are heaviest.

The worst area? Blue Angel Parkway near its intersection with U.S. 98 in Escambia County.

The findings match projections from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection that vehicle exhaust is surpassing industry as the greatest air pollution threat in the area.

But the findings present a challenge that comes from comparing our health problems with those of other communities. If pollution causes disease, and pollution is widespread, how do you tell what is normal?

For example, if the national level of cancer is elevated by pollution, what does it tell you if the level in the Pensacola Bay Area is close to it? If we don’t know what cancer rates would be like in a pristine world, it’s hard to say if pollution raises risks here.

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