skip to main content
skip to newscasts

Friday, March 29, 2024

Public News Service Logo
facebook instagram linkedin reddit youtube twitter
view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

NC Asthma Cases Prompt Push for Hyperlocal Air Monitoring

play audio
Play

Thursday, October 17, 2019   

RALEIGH, N.C. – After spending decades treating people with severe asthma, a retired emergency room physician is calling for local air quality monitors in every North Carolina county.

Dr. Robert Parr, along with the nonprofit organization Clean Air Carolina, helped install stationary air quality monitors in New Hanover County.

"After looking through the medical research, I realized that I was treating these people on a temporary basis, because oftentimes, I was discharging them into an environment with dirty air,” Parr explains. “And that dirty air was actually the cause of why they came into the emergency room in the first place."

Poor air quality is linked to respiratory and heart complications.

And according to the World Health Organization, air pollution is responsible for millions of premature deaths globally.

Right now there are monitors in 86 counties.

Calvin Cupini, citizen science program manager for Clean Air Carolina, says his group is working with people to acquire and install air sensors in communities in all of the state's 100 counties.

He adds North Carolina would be among the first to undertake a citizen science project of this size.

"We'd be in direct competition with California,” he states. “It would really say something for North Carolina to have a project like this, with so many different partners."

Parr says the local sensors allow residents to check their air quality in real time. Air sensitive individuals can gauge whether or not it's OK to mow the lawn, go for a run, or be outside for long periods of time.

"So I was treating patients with prednisone, inhalers, sometimes antibiotics if their asthmatic symptoms led to a bacterial infection,” he explains. “Where, if they actually knew the quality of their air that they were breathing on a daily basis, then they might be able to avoid that air."

Parr also points out that people living near industrial areas are more prone to developing health problems from breathing polluted air.

Disclosure: Clean Air Carolina contributes to our fund for reporting on Climate Change/Air Quality, Energy Policy, Environment, Environmental Justice. If you would like to help support news in the public interest, click here.


get more stories like this via email
more stories
The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments this week about the popular abortion pill Mifepristone and will weigh in on whether the U.S. Food and Drug Administration was correct in how it can be dosed and prescribed. (Ascannio/Adobe Stock)

Health and Wellness

play sound

Missouri residents are worried about future access to birth control. The latest survey from The Right Time, an initiative based in Missouri…


Social Issues

play sound

Wisconsin children from low-income families are now on track to get nutritious foods over the summer. Federal officials have approved the Badger …

Social Issues

play sound

Almost 2,900 people are unsheltered on any given night in the Beehive State. Gov. Spencer Cox is celebrating signing nine bills he says are geared …


The U.S. teaching workforce remains primarily white while the percentage of Black teachers has declined. However, the percentage of Asian and Latinx teachers is rising.(WavebreakMediaMicro/Adobestock)

Social Issues

play sound

Education advocates are calling on lawmakers to increase funding for programs to combat the teacher shortage. Around 37% of schools nationwide …

Environment

play sound

New York's Legislature is considering a bill to get clean-energy projects connected to the grid faster. It's called the RAPID Act, for "Renewable …

Social Issues

play sound

Earlier this month, a new Arizona Public Service rate hike went into effect and one senior advocacy group said those on a fixed income may struggle …

Social Issues

play sound

Michigan recently implemented a significant juvenile justice reform package following recommendations from a task force made up of prosecutors…

 

Phone: 303.448.9105 Toll Free: 888.891.9416 Fax: 208.247.1830 Your trusted member- and audience-supported news source since 1996 Copyright © 2021