For more than two decades, Professor Frederica Perera and a team from the Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health tracked pregnant women's air pollution exposure and their children's development in disadvantaged communities of Northern Manhattan and the South Bronx. More than 1,100 children were assessed at ages one, two and three. Published in the journal Environmental Health, the study ‘ Less air pollution previously related to clean air and climate policies is linked to improved cognitive scores over time in NYC children’ found that as New York's air quality improved, toddlers ' mental development scores rose alongside it. Here's how the two-decade study unfolded, and what the researchers found. Researchers pointed to specific measures behind the decline in pollutants, including the city's Clean Fuel Bus Program, Clean Air Taxi legislation, the Clean Heat Program and the Climate Mobilization Act.
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