Ever wonder what the air quality is like inside your home? If you live in California, here is a chance to find out. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, a facility supported by the U.S. Department of Energy and managed by the University of California, is conducting an indoor air quality study, and looking for households to participate.
To qualify, participants must be at least 18 years old, have a smoke-free home in California, and be able to complete an interview about their home in English. The study will involve:
• Completing a screening survey and two interviews, each of which will last 10 to 30 minutes, over the phone
• Setting up a small package of air monitoring devices, and returning them to the lab (by mail) after one week, or allowing a research team to visit your home to set up and pick up the monitors.
Everyone selected to take part in the study will receive information about the air quality in their home, plus $75.
Researchers are hoping to gather information about the air quality in California homes, and especially about how natural gas appliances might impact air quality. The study will assess whether families are being exposed to air pollutants emitted by improperly functioning gas appliances.
Families interested in taking part in the study can complete a web-based form at healthyhomes.lbl.gov or call 510-517-2357.
At least 24,000 children in L.A. County have asthma because they live near busy roadways and breathe in the pollution belched out by a never-ending procession of cars and trucks, says the latest in a stream of studies linking air pollution and breathing problems.
On the heels of a 
Breast cancer researchers have increasingly been looking into the possible role of environmental factors – like pesticides, beauty products, household chemicals and plastics used to make water bottles – in boosting women’s risk for the disease. But a review of all available scientific data by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) last December failed to find enough data to confirm or rule out links to these factors.
Autism spectrum disorder and other neurodevelopmental problems now affect 400,000 to 600,000 of the 4 million children born in the U.S. each year. The jury is still out on precisely what causes ASD, but evidence increasingly points to a combination of genetics and environmental factors.
If you’re shopping for inexpensive trinkets for you and the kids at places like Claire’s, Big Lots or Justice, you could be getting a hazard you didn’t bargain for. A report released today by The Ecology Center, a Michigan-based nonprofit environmental organization found that at least half the samples they tested contained high levels of one or more dangerous chemicals.
A colleague was telling me this morning about how her 5-year-old pointed to the ashtray in their car and asked, “What’s that?” – a question unthinkable in our own smoky childhoods. But there’s evidence that not all kids are so healthily unaware of the trappings of tobacco.
If you buy infant formula or cereal or energy bars for your family, take the time to read the ingredient lists on these products. Dartmouth College researchers are reporting high levels of arsenic in formula or cereal/energy bars fortified with some rice products or sweetened with organic brown rice syrup.
In Long Beach and Riverside, traffic-related pollution is adding $18 million per year to the cost of childhood asthma, almost half of which is due to new asthma cases caused by pollution. That’s the finding from a study released Jan. 25 in the online European Respiratory Journal. The study is the first cost estimate to include cases attributable to air pollution.
There’s not really a radon “season.” This colorless, odorless gas is around all year around – maybe even in your home. It’s a natural, radioactive gas that comes from the breakdown of uranium in soil, rock and water, then seeps into homes through cracks in the foundation, piping, etc.
