Air Pollution Exposure Harms Cognitive Performance, Study Finds

A study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ties pollution to a significant decline in cognition that worsens with age, reports National Public Radio . The researchers investigated the effects of air pollution over multiple years on more than 25,000 people in 162 Chinese counties, and matched those results with pollution conditions at the time of each test. They observed both short-term and cumulative effects of air pollution on cognitive performance. Pollution's effect on verbal test performance worsened as people got older, particularly among men and people with less education. Yale School of Public Health Professor Xi Chen says persons with less education are likely to experience more harm because they work outside more often and are exposed to higher pollution levels. He also says exposure to pollution could make seniors less effective in making major financial and medical decisions. Chen suggests pollution may have a damaging impact on the white matter in the brain, which could vary between men and women. "If the air pollution improves from China's level to the American EPA standard level, that means that would improve everyone's education by around one year," Chen notes.