SAN ANTONIO – The Texas A&M Transportation Institute has created a heat map to show the relationship between traffic-related air pollution and childhood asthma. San Antonio ranks within the 10 worst cities.

  • Asthma cases related to traffic-related air pollution
  • Study measures the relationship between 2000 and 2010
  • The effect has decreased in the last 10 years

One of the principal findings is that asthma cases attributable to traffic-related air pollution have dramatically decreased over a 10-year period.

The study measures the relationship between 2000 and 2010.

“This is the first time a study has estimated the national childhood asthma incidents attributable to different ambient air pollutants,” Principal Investigator Haneen Khreis, assistant research scientist with TTI, said. “Based on our modeling estimates, childhood asthma cases attributable to traffic-related air pollution (nitrogen dioxide, or NO2) decreased, on average, by 33 percent between 2000 and 2010. This is a win for public health.”

San Antonio is number 10 on the list. New York comes in at number 1, and the only other Texas city on the list, Dallas, comes in at number 8.