Rural Air Quality and Respiratory Health
This PhD thesis in Occupational and Environmental Health has several parts. Chapter II describes the evaluation of indoor and outdoor air quality (particulate matter and endotoxin) for 197 rural households. Chapter III describes the monitoring of hydrogen sulfide in proximity to a swine confinement. Chapter IV evaluates the association between childhood asthma and relative residential proximity to swine operations. Results showed that “children with a larger relative environmental exposure to CAFOs had a significantly increased risk of physician-diagnosed asthma.”
With the rise of large industrial CAFOs as the preeminent form of livestock production and their associated higher production of gases, vapors, and fumes, these exposures now have the potential to affect larger numbers of individuals, including members of the neighboring community not involved in agriculture or related industrial livestock production.