In a California Healthline Special Report, a spokesperson for the California Air Resources Board highlighted recent findings on health care implications of air pollution in the state, and a cardiologist and epidemiologist weigh in on how air pollution increases the risk of heart disease, cancer and other diseases.
The Special Report includes comments from:
- Jim Gauderman, an environmental epidemiologist at USC;
- Gerald Pohost, a cardiologist and spokesperson for the American Heart Association; and
- Dmitri Stanich, a spokesperson for the California Air Resources Board.
Stanich said new research found that exposure to small particulate air pollution is responsible for three times more deaths in California than previously thought. Stanich explained that the study is not counting new deaths but instead is re-evaluating deaths that already have been classified.
Such pollution is known to increase the incidence of asthma, bronchitis and emphysema, but it also is linked to cancer, heart disease and stroke (Kennedy, California Healthline, 6/30).