"These tiny, toxic particles creep into your body, affecting your lungs and your heart," said Younan, a preventive medicine research associate at the Keck School of Medicine. Tiny pollution particles called particulate matter 2.5 (PM2.5) -- 30 times smaller than a strand of hair -- are extremely harmful to your health, according to Diana Younan, lead author of the study. A new study linking higher levels of air pollution to increased teenage delinquency is a reminder of the importance of clean air and the need for more foliage in urban spaces, a Keck School of Medicine of USC researcher said. The data was adjusted for gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, neighborhood socioeconomic characteristics and neighborhood quality. "Many affordable housing developments are built near freeways. Many scientists suspect PM2.5 causes inflammation in the brain or somehow travels directly into the brain and messes with neural network connections, resulting in the observed bad behaviors." The study, published on Dec. 13 in the Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, suggests that ambient air pollution may increase delinquent behavior among 9- to 18-year-olds in urban neighborhoods in Greater Los Angeles. They computed each participant's residential address and used mathematical modeling to estimate the ambient PM2.5 levels outside each home.
Now...this is simply bizarre. You mean to tell me that I could have been using the environment to get myself out of trouble? Where was this article like 7 years ago! To be fair, this article is a bit of a stretch...and fails to take other factors into account. However, it is by far the most interesting article I have read in a while; the implications could be linked to mental disorders as well. However, the population being 9-18 year olds in URBAN Los Angeles neighborhoods would discourage any inferences about ALL teenagers. In order to make this statistically significant, one would have to do studies and tests in MULTIPLE areas in the county, and people of all age groups. Next time I mouth off in Mr. Hollister's class, I can't want to blame my poor behavior on the pollution outside...or rather, everywhere!
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