Clin Exp Pediatr. 2024 Oct 31. doi: 10.3345/cep.2023.01578. Online ahead of print.
ABSTRACT
Children face the excitement of a changing world but also encounter environmental threats to their health that were neither known nor suspected several decades ago. Children are at particu-lar risk of exposure to pollutants that are widely dispersed in the air, water, and food. Children and adolescents are exposed to chemical, physical, and biological risks at home, in school, and elsewhere. Actions are needed to reduce these risks for children exposed to a series of envi-ronmental hazards. Exposure to a number of persistent environmental pollutants including air pollutants, endocrine disruptors, noise, electromagnetic waves, tobacco and other noxious sub-stances, heavy metals, and microplastics, is linked to damage to the nervous and immune sys-tems and affects reproductive function and development. Exposure to environmental hazards is responsible for several acute and chronic diseases that have replaced infectious diseases as the principal cause of illnesses and death during childhood. Children are disproportionately ex-posed to environmental toxicities. Children drink more water, eat more food, and breathe more frequently than adults. As a result, children have a substantially heavier exposure to toxins pre-sent in water, food, or air than adults. In addition, their hand-to-mouth behaviors and the fact that they live and play close to the ground make them more vulnerable than adults. Children undergo rapid growth and development processes that are easily disrupted. These systems are very delicate and cannot adequately repair the damage caused by environmental toxins. The first international development in children’s environmental health was the Declaration of the Environment Leaders of the Eight on Children’s Environmental Health by the Group of Eight. In 2002, the World Health Organization launched an initiative to improve children’s environ-mental protection effort. Here, we review major environmental pollutants and related hazards among children and adolescents.
PMID:39483040 | DOI:10.3345/cep.2023.01578
