Clean air is vitally important to our health. When we’re breathing in contaminants that don’t belong in our bodies such as smoke, car exhaust, and chemical gas, we’re breathing in tiny particles and chemicals that can damage our organs and harm our bodies.
Even though air surrounds us everywhere, some people are exposed to more air pollution than others. Car exhaust from highways, metals from factories, and chemicals released from landfills are some of the many dangerous air pollutants that can be released into the air. People living near these facilities often have more health issues like asthma, coughing, eye irritation, and heart conditions since they breathe in these air pollutants so often.
Most people don’t want these health issues, so oftentimes communities that don’t have the power to raise concerns and stop them end up near these highways, factories, and landfills. In Oakland, the government built multiple freeways from the 1940’s through 1970’s through a largely African-American community against their wishes, physically surrounding them with freeways and cutting them off from their jobs and the rest of Oakland.
Even though the freeways were built decades ago, the communities can still feel the negative effects that the freeways cause. When cars and trucks burn their gasoline while driving, it releases leftover chemicals into the air that harm living things and pollutes the environment. Cars and trucks travel on the freeways through Oakland constantly, releasing high concentrations of air pollutants nearby.
Since West Oakland is surrounded on all sides by freeways, the mainly black community inhales more air pollutants than the rest of Oakland. Children in West Oakland have higher rates of asthma and emergency hospital visits because of the amount of air pollution they inhale. These children and residents have lifetime lung and heart conditions that seriously hurt their health.
In Oakland, Black residents account for over half of the asthma-related emergency room visits by children under five years old, even though they make up only about 20% of the city’s population under five, according to a 2018 report by the Alameda County Public Health Department.
https://oaklandside.org/2022/01/10/childhood-asthma-prevention-oakland-alameda-county-la-clinica-de-la-raza/
Children in Oakland and Emeryville are the most likely in California to be admitted to the hospital for asthma. Rates of asthma for black children in Alameda County are 2.5x higher than the overall rate in the county
As we can see in Oakland, breathing in pollution that doesn’t belong in our bodies can hurt our health and cause sickness. Air pollution makes it harder to breathe, and when we can’t breathe, it makes it hard to be healthy. These health conditions like asthma prevent kids like you from enjoying the things they love like soccer, running, biking, and more. Imagine how hard it is to play and exercise when you can’t breathe.