Article Summary - Traffic Pollution: a Factor in Street Vendors' Declining Health

Traffic Pollution:
A Factor In Street Vendors’ Declining Health

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Traffic Pollution: A Factor In Street Vendors’ Declining Health

With everything we see and hear about the alarming growth in human emission of air pollutants, it is accurate to say that these pollutants floating in the air we breathe will affect our health in one way or another. Air pollution is much more potent in urbanized regions, with greater population density comes more vehicles, filling the lungs of unsuspecting inhabitants with their harmful emissions. For people who rarely visit these urbanized regions, this is not yet a pressing issue, but what about the people who walk these streets on a daily basis? This question piqued the interest of four health researchers from Thailand who subsequently decided to observe the effects on ideal candidates: street vendors.
Seventy-seven street vendors working on a specific congested street in Bangkok – a vastly overpopulated city – were recruited as part of this experiment. The chosen vendors fit within previously set age and health parameters to ensure unbiased results. The experimentation process for each individual vendor involved the periodic completion of a health symptom diary over a period of two months. Each vendor recorded his or her symptoms from the previous day in this diary. Symptoms were categorized into three groups: Upper respiratory, lower respiratory and other symptoms. The percent of daily reported symptoms were then calculated and analyzed.
The results of this study of local street vendors proved that air pollution due to traffic affects human health. The analysis of data from the experiment went on to
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Traffic Pollution: A Factor In Street Vendors’ Declining Health
prove that the street vendors were more likely to suffer from eye irritation, dizziness, phlegm, chest tightness, upper respiratory symptoms, sore throats, colds, and coughing. These observations strongly demonstrate the need for environmental innovation...