Unit 6: Risk, Exposure, and Health // Section 1: Introduction
Error - unable to load content - Flash Kayla is a normal
teenager except she has asthma, a chronic condition of the
airways that makes it difficult for her to breath at times.
Allergens such as pollens, dust mites, cockroaches, and air
pollution from cigarettes, gas stoves, and traffic make
asthmatics' airways swell so that only limited amounts of air
can pass through and respiration becomes a struggle akin to
breathing through a tiny straw. Growing up poor and black in
Boston, Kayla is part of an epidemic that has seen the asthma
prevalence rate for children rise from 3.6 percent in 1980 to
5.8 percent in 2005 (footnote 1). Asthma incidence has risen in
many industrialized countries around the world (Fig 1), but it
is much more common among children living in inner cities.
Children like Kayla living in Roxbury and Dorchester,
Massachusetts, are five times more likely to be hospitalized for
asthma than children living in wealthier white sections of