Exhale & Exhaust

Exhale & Exhaust

Factors and Features of Environmentally Triggered Asthma

written by Helen Zhu

Commuters might say that driving on the highway, the monotony of the road going on forever and the droning of car engines, hardly makes for a particularly enjoyable sensory experience. Even worse is highway traffic: as the cars slow to a lethargic crawl, the idling engines lead the smell of smoke and smog through the vents of your car to prickle your nose until you are forced to hurriedly press the air recirculation button on the dashboard. For many, the unpleasant sensations and pollution of the highway are limited to the duration of the commute. However, due to the close proximity of highway construction to homes, this intrusive and harmful pollution is a constant presence in every breath of everyday life for thousands.

The infrastructure of the highway and freeway system in the US was delineated using the red-lining maps developed by the Federal Housing Association and real estate developers in the 1930s. These maps coded zones according to the perceived risk that banks would take on if they gave loans to aspiring homeowners in the area: neighborhoods designated as “red” or “hazardous” represented the highest risk, and individuals from these areas who attempted to take out a loan to purchase a home outside their community were often denied. This process, known as “redlining,” often targeted communities of color and was the primary tool for housing segregation. In the 1950s, urban renewal plans such as the National Interstate and Defense Highway Act allowed governments to take private property from designated redlined zones for the public construction of new highways. This meant that individuals in these redlined communities, often communities of color, were subject to either physical displacement or hazardous air pollution from greatly increased traffic.

photo by Sam Zilberman

Thus, choices in physical infrastructure led to environmental inequality, where environmental health hazards and risks are stratified across lines of race and class. Another example of environmental inequality is from the consequences of corporate manufacturing plants: waste and air pollution continue to fall disproportionately on low income communities and especially on black, brown, and indigenous communities. Legislation that prioritizes wealthy corporations with the expense of environmental harm to specific populations’ residents only reinforces racist, colonial representations of people of color and their health as unimportant.

Highway construction and the traffic-related air pollution (TRAP) it causes around urban residential areas has led to increasing rates and risks of asthma, marked by lung inflammation, spasms, and mucus. When particulate matter and gaseous pollutants like ozone or nitrogen dioxide are respirated, irritants introduce airway inflammation and hyperresponsiveness. Residing by major highways results in regular exposure to pollutants and causes the chronic constriction of these airways. Furthermore, gaseous pollutants can act as oxidizing agents, which can overwhelm the lungs’ antioxidizing enzymes to cause oxidative stress—these effects are also associated with the development and exacerbation of asthma.

A local example of environmental racism can be seen in Barrio Logan, a neighborhood in south central San Diego with a large Latino population. According to the Intersectional Health Project in San Diego, Barrio Logan was delineated by 1930s redlining and was consequently vulnerable to urban highway construction legislation. In the 1950s, the residential Barrio Logan was redistricted as a mixed use zone, which opened up the land and property for government and private construction. Barrio Logan today contains an oil-processing center, a Navy shipyard, and, most notably, Coronado Bridge and the Interstate 5 highway. This industrialization and the pollutants that came along with it still drastically affect the health of Barrio Logan’s residents: in Barrio Logan, there are about 81 visits per every 10,000 people to the hospital for asthma, a rate higher than 92.9% of other zip code areas across California. To combat the effects of this environmental racism and protect future generations, we must reduce future air pollution.

Reducing TRAP generation can decrease residential exposure and the impact of asthma on urban communities of color like Barrio Logan. The Barrio Logan Monitoring Project, implemented by the Environmental Health Coalition, has been impactful in accomplishing this here in San Diego. This project provides residents with outdoor air monitors, indoor air filters, and filter monitors to measure particulate matter exposure inside homes. This data has helped residents in community planning efforts to reroute traffic away from residential. Monitoring the effectiveness of this plan and others is important to holding cities continually accountable to addressing and eliminating environmental inequities in terms of traffic-related air pollution.

Understanding how legislation has created environmental inequities allows for recognition and action against the resulting health disparities that disproportionately risk the lives of communities of color. Neighborhoods like Barrio Logan have a vibrant and rich culture despite the adversities they have faced, and it is imperative that future research and regulation both address the root causes of morbidity and present solutions accessible to the most affected individuals.

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