(September 30, 2003
Healthy Children, Healthy Economy,
Researchers Find
The economic benefits Southern
California derives when pollution levels drop can be measured, in
part, by the drop in the number of times children are absent from
school, as noted by two Cal State Fullerton researchers.
When children stay home from school,
so do their working parents, resulting in losses in productivity,
which translate into economic losses.
The researchers’ findings
come from a two-year study comparing ozone levels and the number
of school absences attributed to upper-respiratory illnesses related
to pollution. Results of the study, performed by Jane V. Hall and
Victory Brajer under a California Air Resources Board contract,
will appear in next month’s issue of Contemporary Economic
Policy.
Hall is a professor of economics
and member of the National Academies of Science Committee on Air
Quality Management, and Brajer is an associate professor of economics.
They used a combination of numbers of absences and days of symptoms
of illness to establish a value or cost of children being ill and
the loss of time for the adults who care for children too ill to
attend school. (They did not include other costs, such as visits
to the doctor, in their research.)
“An assessment of the economic
benefits of reducing school absences can help establish more concretely
the benefits that have been realized from past ozone reductions
and suggest the magnitude of benefits from further progress toward
health-based standards,” the researchers noted in their upcoming
article.
The study covered four counties:
Orange, Los Angeles, San Bernardino and Riverside over the period
of 1990 to 1999.
“The biggest benefits were
seen in areas that had previously had the dirtiest air,” said
Hall. “On average, we found that children experienced one
less absence a year just because the air they were breathing was
cleaner.”
In previous studies, Hall and
Brajer have evaluated whether air quality regulations adversely
affect the state’s economy and the cost of related health
effects from ozone and fine particles in the air.
Media Contacts:
Jane Hall at 657-278-2236 or jhall@fullerton.edu
Victor Brajer at 657-278-3818 or vbrajer@fullerton.edu
Pamela McLaren, Public Affairs, 657-278-4852 or pmclaren@fullerton.edu
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