University of Michigan researchers are studying connections between air toxins and K-12 student performance in Michigan - and possibly whether air quality should be a factor when deciding where to build public schools.

The study combines census, air quality and school district information to give a bird's-eye view of where schools, poverty and pollution intersect - kilometer by kilometer across the entire state. By using additional public data supplied by Detroit Public Schools, researchers at U-M's School of Natural Resources and Environment (SNRE) are taking the study a step further: comparing student performance against environmental data.

The inclusion of the Detroit data - covering 194 schools and more than 100,000 students during the 2007-08 academic year - provides an unprecedented level of detail regarding associations between pollution, income and students' performance in schools.

"Currently, information about the effects of air toxics on Michigan's school-aged population is largely anecdotal," said Paul Mohai, an SNRE professor and the project's lead researcher. "We do not know whether schools in the state are located in areas that are more - or less - polluted than their surrounding communities. It is also uncertain which schools are most at risk from air-toxics exposure and whether such exposures are related to health outcomes, absenteeism, school performance and dropout rates."

Joining Mohai in coordinating the research is Byoung-Suk Kweon, a research investigator and adjunct assistant professor at SNRE.

The Kresge Foundation, based in Troy, Mich., is funding the $485,000, three-year study, which gets under way this summer.

"The Kresge Foundation's new, national health program is focused on addressing the many environmental factors that affect the health of vulnerable populations. With this grant we are proud to support not only one of the pioneers in environmental justice research, but also to contribute to a growing body of scientific evidence that poor and minority community residents, especially children, may be adversely affected by the impacts of toxics exposure," says David Fukuzawa, senior program officer for The Kresge Foundation and Health Program Team leader.

School-aged children are an underrepresented group in air pollution research, but they are perhaps the most vulnerable to air pollution, said Mohai, who was recently appointed to the state's Environmental Justice Working Group to help develop an environmental justice plan for Michigan. Increasing air pollution research of this population is timely and necessary to ensure children's long-term health and quality of education, he added. For example, health-care costs associated with childhood respiratory disease might be reduced by ensuring health school environments that accommodate children's learning and play.

The U-M researchers are looking for links between toxic air exposures and absenteeism, test scores, school dropout rates and health. A computer model will look for these links by creating a series of overlaid maps. A related project objective is to assist community organizations and nonprofit groups with policy recommendations to alleviate such risks.

Potentially, the findings could be used to re-evaluate state and local policies that lead to the siting of new schools in areas with already high concentrations of pollution. At a minimum, the data-crunching and analysis will help identify schools requiring further investigation.

"It's safe to say this is a study that will look for associations," said Kweon. "We're not saying it's a core association, but it's a question worth exploring."

There are a total of 838 schools districts (552 local educational agencies, 229 public school academies and 57 intermediate school districts) in Michigan containing 1,828 elementary, 513 middle and 651 high schools as of September 2007. The researchers will obtain information about these public schools and determine the boundaries of their respective districts - and then overlay that information against U.S. Census income and demographic information as well as U.S. Environmental Protection Agency air pollution risk data.

The EPA generates the air toxics-risk data from toxic air emissions generated by polluting industrial facilities tracked in its Toxic Release Inventory database. In any given year, EPA receives emission information from about 25,000 industrial locations Since 1988, the EPA has used the data to model dispersion and fall-out patterns of some 600 toxic chemicals, taking into account the types; relative toxicities, timing and volume of releases; wind directions at time of release; stack heights; and other factors.

"Since there has been much recent attention and interest on issues of environmental injustice in Michigan and nationally, we also intend to examine racial and socioeconomic disparities in the distribution of air toxics risk in Michigan and Detroit and how such disparities may be linked to racial and socioeconomic disparities in outcomes for the school-aged population," Mohai said.

The research project is a natural extension of the environmental justice focus at the School of Natural Resources and Environment. Environmental justice as a social movement has grown rapidly since the early 1990s in response to concerns about disproportionate environmental burdens in poor, indigenous and minority communities. SNRE played an early and important role in bringing national attention to this emerging social and political problem. In 1990, SNRE faculty organized the nation's first academic environmental justice conference to examine the links between, race, class and environmental hazards.

About the School of Natural Resources and Environment
The School of Natural Resources and Environment's overarching objective is to contribute to the protection of the Earth's resources and the achievement of a sustainable society. Through research, teaching, and outreach, faculty, staff, and students are devoted to generating knowledge and developing policies, techniques and skills to help practitioners manage and conserve natural and environmental resources to meet the full range of human needs on a sustainable basis.
http://www.snre.umich.edu/

About the University of Michigan
The University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan, is one of the great public research universities of the United States and a leader in higher education. Since 1817, the University has provided a national model of a complex, diverse, and comprehensive public institution of higher learning that supports excellence in research, provides outstanding undergraduate, graduate, and professional education, and demonstrates commitment to service through partnerships and collaborations that extend to the community, region, state, nation, and around the world. More than 40,000 students attend the University's 19 colleges.

About The Kresge Foundation:
The Kresge Foundation is a $3.9 billion private foundation that supports communities by building the capacity of nonprofit organizations in six fields: health, the environment, arts and culture, education, human services and community development. In partnership with grantees, Kresge seeks to influence the quality of life for future generations by creating access and opportunity in underserved communities, improving the health of low-income people, supporting artistic expression, assisting in the revitalization of Detroit, and advancing methods for dealing with global climate change. In 2007, the foundation approved 283 grants totaling $178.5 million. In June 2007, the Kresge Foundation embarked upon what it expects will be a multi-year expansion of its grantmaking to better address society's pressing issues. Central to this expansion are nine values, which now serve as the centerpiece of its grantmaking criteria. Visit www.kresge.org