Environmental Factors Behind Asthma: Wildfires, Pollution, and Poverty Explained
Health is deeply intertwined with environmental factors and poverty. It is no coincidence that the San Joaquin Valley has highest rate of childhood asthma in the state, that cities in the San Joaquin Valley top the list of those with the worst air pollution in the country, and that the valley is also home to some of the state’s poorest communities. About 26 percent of school-aged children have asthma and seven of the 10 California counties with the highest child poverty rates are in the San Joaquin Valley. In already polluted places like the San Joaquin Valley, “the wildfires worsen your rates of asthma by fourfold and increase the rate of heart attack by 42 percent,” Dr. Kari Nadeau, director of the Sean N. Parker Center for Allergy & Asthma Research at Stanford University said. “This is just going to make it exponentially worse.”
