Utah’s air purifiers in schools program is in jeopardy
A silver lining of the COVID-19 pandemic brought funds for much needed school improvements. Improvements that UPHE has been advocating for even before the pandemic to protect children’s health in school, and in the long term. This funding allowed UPHE to work with the Utah Department of Health and Human Services to place over 30,000 HEPA air purifiers in schools and daycares across the state. An initiative which has been shown to reduce absenteeism, improve test scores and behavior, and enhance health, when studied in similar settings.
Dr. Brian Moench recently had an op-ed published in the Deseret News on the importance of the state continuing to fund the filters for these purifiers:
About 15 years ago, research emerged on the neurotoxicity of air pollution, using multiple metrics of brain and nervous system function across all age groups. A few years later, more specific research showed a significant association between air pollution, especially prenatal maternal exposure, and impaired brain development in children, including autism and other learning disabilities and behavioral disorders.
Then came more research showing air pollution changes macroscopic and microscopic brain anatomy in children, causing loss of neurons and brain volume in key areas. Gaining entrance through the nose, lungs and bloodstream, pollution particles contaminate the brain in large numbers, millions per gram of brain tissue.
In a study “heard ‘round the world,” we learned the average adult brain is contaminated with another component of pollution: about seven grams of plastic nanoparticles, the mass equivalent of a plastic spoon.
But we also know both of these invasions of brain tissue begin in childhood, if not during fetal development. The plastic particles contaminate our food and water and the air we inhale. Worse still, researchers found there is 50% more plastic in our brains than eight years ago.
Clinical studies show that pollution inhaled by school children on the way to school impairs their working memory on that very same day. Air pollution levels at school, on the day of an exam, is associated with lower test scores. Long-term pollution reduces scores on end-of-year achievement tests, ultimate education attainment and career earnings. Some of these studies involved children in Utah. More frequent air pollution spikes were associated with reduced math and English test scores for third graders in all primary public schools in Salt Lake County.
Air purifiers in school classrooms improve academic performance even when baseline pollution is well below EPA standards. The benefit is even greater than standard interventions such as reducing class size by 30%, “high dose” tutoring, increasing family income with an earned income tax credit or the Head Start program.
Air purifiers help much more than the brain. They reduce respiratory infections, improve children’s overall health and reduce the cost to parents, schools and the entire community of school absenteeism.
Considering this extensive research, Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment (UPHE) began calling for air purifiers in all school classrooms several years ago. The state Legislature repeatedly brushed that off, but then the pandemic happened. Within a few months it became clear that air purifiers could capture particles that harbored COVID-19 viruses, and the Biden Administration’s Inflation Reduction Act made available hundreds of millions of dollars to place air purifiers in schools throughout the country to improve the safety of reopening.
In Utah, that money was administered by the state’s Dept. of Health and Human Services, who then asked UPHE to develop and implement the program. We jumped at the opportunity to help control the pandemic, but just as much to help protect student brain development and academic achievement. Over two years, we placed air purifiers in 75% of the state’s K-12 classrooms and over 60% of the day care and pre-K centers; 30,000 air purifiers in all. We advised schools to order extra filters so they would not have to incur any additional costs for three years. The program cost $20 million and was probably the most important air quality initiative with the biggest bang for its buck of any pollution reduction program in Utah in the last several decades.
Unfortunately, this program could be in jeopardy if the state does not step up to fill the void. Schools have started contacting us, concerned about replacement filters. One school shortsightedly suggested they might just throw out the air purifiers if funding for filters did not materialize. With the air purifiers already bought, paid for, placed and working well, the state could maintain this program with yearly replacement of filters for around $2 million, but our pleas for funding so far have fallen on deaf ears.
Our air pollution had been improving for many years, until recently. Now with wildfires and higher ozone already reversing that trend, and inland ports, I-15 expansion, more shrinking of the Great Salt Lake and a new EPA determined to roll back clean air regulations across the board, these air purifiers will be even more important.
We need the public’s help to pressure our lawmakers and the governor’s office to spend this small amount of money that can do so much good statewide for Utah’s school children. If you have a child in school, a day care center or pre-K, you should be calling the state and asking them to fund replacement filters.
If Utah is really the best-managed state in the country, this should be an easy choice. Every Utah child deserves the life-long health benefits and the intellectual and academic benefits of cleaner air at school.