Kids are used to hearing they shouldn’t play in traffic but now a study of children, traffic, and allergies points to problems with allergies and other associated ailments when children live near major roadways and breathe the traffic-polluted air. The German study indicates living as close as 55 yards (or not quite 50 meters) from a busy road ups a child’s risk of developing allergies by about 50%.

Joachim Heinrick led a team of researchers from the German Research Center for Environment and Health at Helmholtz Zentrum Muenchen that involved thousands of children who ranged in age from infants to 6-year-olds who lived near 40 specific locations around Munich where the study team monitored the air for pollution. The study’s health assessment of the children involved questionnaires, including proximity to a pollution-measured site, and counts of allergy antibodies in their blood serum.

One group of 2,900 children included children from birth to age 4 and the second group, involving 3,000 children, included children up to age 6.

Conclusions drawn by the research team indicate the closer to a major roadway a child lives, the higher his or her risk of developing allergies, asthma, and eczema. Socioeconomic status was evaluated as well and the research team concludes that social and economic issues are also contributing factors to allergies in the study’s children.

The research team is expected to monitor the children in the study groups until they reach the age of 10, perhaps longer, to document long-term effects of living near a high-traffic zone and any changes to health status a move to another location might bring.

The June 15 issue of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine carries the full story of this study.