Read 'n' Seed 3: Second Quarter of Environmental Epidemiology: Epidemiological Investigation of Community Environmental Health Problems

For the second quarter  of my book, I covered chapters 5 through 11 which is pages 65-127. These chapters mostly went through and told stories and studies of pollution and ozone problems.

Chapter 5 was the most interesting to me. The title of the chapter is called "The 20 Minute Disaster: Hydrogen Sulfide Spill at Poza Rica". It tells the story of a neighborhood near a plant that happened to have a gas leak. People in the neighborhood were poisoned by these gases, some of which died, some of which were hospitalized. I found it very sad, because so many families were affected by it. Some lost children, some lost a parent, and some lost children and a spouse, all because of a few minute long gas leak. Once the valves were shut, the fog cleared up and the air got better, but not before the devastating effects took place.

Chapter 6 went on to talk about three Los Angelos heat waves, and the researching of the effects of the elderly and sick in the nursing homes. They found there was a 1-day lag between th peak of temperature and the peak of mortality in each age group. They also found that heat waves like these happen every 8 years. 1939, 1947, 1955, and 1963 are significant years in this study.

Chapter 7 is about the planning, analysis, and preparation and how it can save lives. One statement that stuck out to me says "Most heat waves are forecast by the weather service. Should such forecasts provide advice to elderly and ill persons to take preventive measures? If you answered yes, what measures, at what temperature level, and who should offer the advice?" (Goldsmith, 84). I found that very interesting, because taking such precautions could save many lives.

Chapter 8 is about school children in Kawasaki, Japan and their respiratory problems because of the industries near the school district. They used two measuring indexes of air pollution: monthly sulfation rate by lead peroxide method and monthly dustfall. Dustfall?? Honestly? Now that's some serious pollution right there. These students had layers of dust on their school desks and their books became soiled. The industries eventually did something about it to solve the problem, but how horrible for those kids to go through that!

Chapter 9 mostly talks about people with asthma and environmental factors, and the affect on their breathing. An interesting thing I saw was a list of environmental factors of asthma attacks. "1. Allergens such as those produced by cockroaches, house dust mites, mammals and birds, molds and fungi, pollen, and food and drugs. 2. Irritants such as SO2, ozone, NO2 and mixtures of pollutants consisting of ozone, CO, and NO2. 3. Climatic factors such as temperature (more specifically, sudden changes in temperature) and humidity, and temperature inversions. 4. Respiratory infections" (Goldstein and Hartel, 102).

Chapter 10 is about asthma and air pollution in Los Angeles. They found that most of the asthma attacks occurred at night, whereas peak pollution levels were in the middle of the day to early afternoon. It showed that there is a latent period between the pollution exposure and the maximum effect. I found that to be intriguing. They also concluded that small increases in sulfur oxides can lead to aggravation of asthma in a number of the asthmatic persons exposed.

A lot of these cases are from years ago, but it still shows how the environment has an effect on our health. It's good to see that they have done some things to try and fix some of these problems. But it's also sad to see that some of these problems still exist today, even after all the researching. Hopefully, we can continue to minimize pollution. We need our planet for as long as possible!