Area highrise demolition raises health concern for asthmatics

By Sherri McGinnis-Gonzalez

Demolishing highrise public housing increases air pollution in neighborhoods where many asthmatics live, according to a study conducted by University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) School of Public Health researchers.

Little is known about the impact of demolition on air quality. Yet thousands of public housing units in this area and across Chicago and the United States are being torn down in minority, lowincome communities, which often have higher rates of asthma.

“Chicago is the epicenter of the asthma epidemic,” said Samuel Dorevitch, research assistant professor at the UIC School of Public Health and lead author of the study. “Nationally, asthma prevalence rates have been rising and are higher among African Americans than other groups. More dramatic are the disparities between African Americans and other groups in terms of rates of asthma death, asthma hospitalization, and emergency department use due to asthma. Since demolition is going on in the heart of high-risk communities, this is a vulnerable population. We want to identify reversible, treatable, and preventable causes of asthma exacerbation.”

In the study, researchers took air quality samples at three highrise public housing sites—Robert Taylor Homes, Stateway Gardens, and ABLA Homes—before and during demolition. All three sites were within 100 meters of occupied public housing and within 250 meters of a school or community building. The researchers found demolition was associated with a 59% increase in outdoor particulate matter 100 meters downwind of a demolition site, with larger increases occurring closer to the site.

The demolitions took place over several weeks using heavy equipment such as a wrecking ball, pneumatic jacks, and excavators. This method, compared with near instantaneous implosion, caused higher concentrations of particulates during a much longer period of time.

“With implosion, there’s a sharp spike in particulate matter, but it passes quickly,” Dorevitch said. “Using heavy equipment, there are not massive peaks in particulate count, but there’s a relatively sustained increase that goes on over a period of weeks.”

Although the particulate concentrations averaged over 24 hours did not exceed Environmental Protection Agency standards, previous studies have shown adverse health effects and increased mortality may occur during relatively brief increases.

“When we looked at very shorttime intervals, we found extremely high levels downwind of the demolition sites,” said Dorevitch. “The health effects of short-term exposure have not been well described.  We know what an average 24-hour air pollution concentration can do to health, but we don’t know what it means if somebody is exposed to a level ten times the EPA standards over a very short time period. We did document that this occurs, and the height of these shortterm peaks was dramatically higher than the 24-hour averages.”

Particulate air pollution is linked to a variety of respiratory problems such as asthma, chronic bronchitis, and emphysema. It also causes lung cancer and is associated with heart disease, irregular heartbeat, heart attacks, and abnormal birth outcomes such as low birth weight.

According to the researchers, the potential for adverse health effects among those living near the demolition sites, as well as demolition workers, raises great concern. Spraying water during and after demolition can reduce particulates. Other ways to reduce dust particles are wind barriers, covering debris piles, and hauling rock and debris away to less populated areas.

“When conditions were visibly dusty, our measurements of dust levels were considerable higher,” said Dorevitch. “This validates local community concerns about air quality issues and confirms that residents can take an active role in communicating their health concerns to the City, the Department of Environment, and other agencies that are involved in demolition.

“When residents see high levels of dust, whether it’s at a demolition site or near the Dan Ryan construction project, it is affecting air quality. Even though that’s intuitive, we’ve been able to put a number on it,” Dorevitch added. The study appeared in the July issue of the Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association.

Hakan Demirtas, Victoria Persky, Serap Erdal, Lorraine Conroy, Todd Schoonover, and Peter Scheff of the UIC School of Public Health co-authored the study, which was funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences of the National Institutes of Health.