It is the first study to establish the link but is consistent with a growing body of evidence that air pollution can affect mental and cognitive health and that children are particularly vulnerable to poor air quality.
As unhealthy levels of air pollution become "part of the new normal with climate change," Quezada said, serving a homeless population exposed and vulnerable to such bad air quality is just "something we have to work through".
The indicators cover eight main subject areas including vulnerable populations, toxics and waste, air quality, drinking and surface water, human and public health, and climate change.
Compared to adults, children are more susceptible to the negative effects of environmental degradation and more vulnerable to conditions such as poor air quality, contaminated water and extreme heat.
In this study, the inverse association between the perceived dangerous PSI values and mean scores of intrusion, hyper-arousal and overall psychological stress suggest that people who have lower threshold for health hazard are vulnerable to greater psychological stress when air quality deteriorates.
Our research seeks to identify ways to make rural populations – vulnerable populations, in particular – more resilient to air quality deterioration.
"Poor air quality puts the most vulnerable among us, like children and seniors, at risk for asthma, heart attacks, strokes and other health problems".
Continuing this work, our research seeks to identify ways to make rural populations (and vulnerable populations, in particular) more resilient to deteriorating air quality.
Kelly cited studies in California and the Netherlands that suggest the elderly and children were the most vulnerable to the public health consequences of poor air quality.
For several weeks across much of northern Europe, air quality has been so poor that vulnerable people were being warned to stay indoors.
Use of such techniques, in turn, can have public health benefits, particularly for low-income and elderly residents who tend to be more vulnerable to illnesses related to extreme heat and poor air quality.
