Image from LA Public Press article: Organizers and community members giving speeches with Phillips 66 refinery in background during a toxic tour organized by Asian Pacific Environmental Network and Communities for a Better Environment (Photo By Ashley Orona).
“Black and Latino children disproportionately experience asthma leading to more emergency room visits and missed school days, according to a new report by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health in partnership with the Asthma Coalition of Los Angeles County.
The report, released on Oct. 2 and based on data from a 2023 survey, found 7.3% of children countywide reported having asthma, compared to 12.1% statewide, according to the 2023 California Health Interview Study. Black children reported experiencing the highest rates of asthma at 9.5%, followed by Latino children at 8%, white at 6.5%, multi-racial children at 6.3% and Asian 4.4%. The report acknowledged that the data for Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander and American Indian/Alaskan Native populations was too small a sample size to be available in this report.
The data in the asthma report came from the 2023 LA County Health Survey, which surveyed a random sample of 7,391 households in LA County.
Despite those striking disparities, a decade ago, the numbers were much worse. In 2011, 24.9% of Black children in the county reported being diagnosed with asthma, according to the report.
The ongoing disparity is “not surprising,” said Julia May, a senior scientist at Communities for a Better Environment, an environmental justice organization informing residents about pollutants in their community and advocating for reducing our reliance on fossil fuels. “It’s been known for a long time that communities of color are worst impacted by air pollution and health impacts like asthma.”
“…Children across age groups reported missing one or more days of school or day care at high rates due to asthma complications, with children under five years of age reporting the highest at 62.3%.
Alicia Rivera, Wilmington community organizer with CBE, works directly with residents in the vicinity of the refineries informing them and hears many stories about impacts to their health, specifically with asthma.
“[I’ve heard] stories of kids getting asthma attacks past midnight and turning blue,” Rivera said.
She said that a local coalition, Long Beach Alliance for Children with Asthma, has taught care takers how to treat their children with asthma and given them the tools to manage it at home. But sometimes the treatment doesn’t work, and as parents get their children to be able to breathe they wind up in the emergency room, she said.
“Asthma attacks are so severe that they just really need to get oxygen applied to them and treatment like medication,” Rivera said…”
“…South LA, Metro LA and the South Bay were identified as the top three areas with the highest asthma rates in the county.
The report suggests that geographic disparities are not a result of individual behaviors or family decisions but “largely by systemic inequities, including historical disinvestment in clean air initiatives and unequal access to less polluted environments.”
Scientist Julia May said that decades ago, the air pollution was “so extreme” that you couldn’t even see through it. But thanks to advocacy from local organizations like CBE through community-led campaigns such as stopping proposed power plants in Vernon and Nueva Azalea, and blocking the expansion of the 710 freeway, they’ve successfully helped protect some communities from further air pollution.
However, many people still experience a disproportionate amount of air pollution. May said that in Wilmington, a community in the South Bay where CBE organizes, residents experience a mash up of pollution sources, including freeway traffic, port and rail operations, oil and gas production, and refineries.
“The biggest source of pollution that ties all of this together is fossil fuels,” May said. “It’s fossil fuels in transportation, in oil refining, in oil drilling and in other industries.”
About a decade ago, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reigned in some local pollution by strengthening the ozone standard to 70 parts per billion. In August 2018, the EPA dictated that the region did not meet these standards, triggering the South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD), which is the regulatory agency responsible for improving air quality in LA, Orange, Riverside, and San Bernardino counties, to develop a plan to reduce emissions.
The Clean Air Act is a federal law that regulates air emissions from stationary sources and mobile sources. It authorizes the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to establish air quality standards to protect public health and regulate emissions of hazardous pollutants such as ozone and particulate matter.
But the region is still struggling to meet clear air goals, and AQMD is calling on the federal government to do their part.
In 2022, AQMD adopted a plan to get closer to achieving federal air quality standards where they stated there is “no viable pathway” to reduce emissions to meet the goals set in 2015 by the EPA of reducing nitrogen oxides — key polluters that create ozone — by nearly 70 percent before 2037.
One of the biggest local hurdles to clean air, according to AQMD, is the fact that most nitrogen oxide emissions come from heavy-duty trucks, ships, airplanes, locomotives and construction equipment that aren’t under their control. AQMD has regulatory authority over stationary sources of pollution, such as oil refineries, power plants, and gas stations.
“Given the bulk of the Basin’s NOx emissions in 2037 will be coming from federally regulated sources, the South Coast AQMD and the California Air Resources Board (CARB) cannot sufficiently reduce emissions to meet the standard without federal action,” AQMD said in the 2022 report.
And CBE scientist Julia May agrees. “We already have regulations on transportation to make them cleaner, although those have been attacked by the Trump administration,” she said.
Earlier this year, EPA Administrator Lee Zedlin announced the agency will target 31 environmental regulations, including rolling back the greenhouse gas reporting program, which requires facilities nationwide to report emissions annually.
‘We need a plan to gradually phase out the pollution sources so that people don’t have to suffer with asthma and these other health problems that they didn’t cause,’ May said.”