Goal Statement

A healthy and safe outdoor environment will exist for all Californians, with particular focus on optimizing respiratory health.

Overview

There is increasing awareness of the many effects of the outdoor environment on people with asthma. Disproportionate exposures and impacts occur in communities with higher proportions of people of low income or from racial and ethnic minorities, a phenomenon which contributes to disparities in asthma prevalence and outcomes.

Many factors lead to outdoor air exposures that can contribute to the causation of asthma or exacerbated pre-existing asthma. For example, the "goods movement industry" is responsible for much diesel pollution. There are increasing numbers of ships anchored near or docked in enlarging California ports that expose people to increased amounts of diesel pollution. In turn, vast numbers of diesel trucks line up and idle at these ports to pick up and transport goods to warehouses further inland.

Individual dependence on the automobile has been associated with more vehicles, longer miles traveled in cars, and subsequent increased traffic pollution. Agricultural practices and forestry practices may increase dust and particulates, or airborne pesticides in surrounding communities. The energy sector produces particulates, sulfur oxides, nitrogen combustion of fossil fuels, which contributes to the mix of pollutants that adversely affect people with asthma.

Goal 5 contains objectives to decrease air pollution as well as other asthma "triggers." The objectives address not only issues whose remediation may cause relatively rapid improvements in asthma prevalence or severity but also "upstream" issues (e.g., a paucity of alternative energy sources) whose remediation may not affect asthma rates for years or decades. Improvement in some areas, such as increasing use of bicycles and walking, may favorably impact physical activity, nutrition, obesity, diabetes, and other health conditions in addition to asthma.