Pollution tied to heart attacks; could Latinos be at increased risk?

By Hope Gillette, Voxxi

Individuals with peak exposure to air pollutants, such as those emitted by cars and factories, have a 5 percent increased risk for heart attacks, indicates research from Rice University. While men, non-Hispanic blacks and people older than age 65 had the highest risk factors in the data, Hispanics may actually be at increased risk with already high cardiovascular disease rates and being more likely to live in polluted areas.

“The bottom-line goal is to save lives,” researcher Katherine Ensor, a professor and chair of the department of statistics at Rice University, said in a university news release. “We’d like to contribute to a refined warning system for at-risk individuals. Blanket warnings about air quality may not be good enough. At the same time, we want to enhance our understanding of the health cost of pollution — and celebrate its continuing reduction.”

The study, which focused primarily on residents in Houston, Texas, found exposure to peak air pollutants for a period of as little as two days caused a significant increase in a person’s risk for heart attacks. Though the findings were not pulled from a nationwide data pool, the research should serve as a warning for groups typically living in poorer urban settings—such as Hispanics.

“We already have higher rates of asthma than others in our country because Latinos live in poor communities where there are lots of air pollutants, but especially we are looking at smog and ozone,” said Elena Rios, president and CEO of National Hispanic Medical Association back in 2011 to The Record. At that time, the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), National Latino Coalition on Climate Change, the Center for American Progress and the National Wildlife Federation joined forces to bring about awareness regarding the risk of pollution exposure for Latinos.

Heart attacks and other pollution-related complications

One of the well- known smog complications for the Latino population is that of asthma, an issue partnerships such as the one in 2011 have been seeking to remedy for some time.Latinos in the United States are more likely than non-Hispanic whites to suffer from asthma, and Latino children are 40 percent more likely to die from asthma compared to non-Hispanic white children; a fact attributed to life in areas where air pollutants are considered high.

“Pollutants surround us wherever we are: In the air we breathe, the water we drink, swim or fish in, even in our homes,” Adrianna Quintero, founder and Director of the National Resources Defense Council’s (NDRC) Latino Outreach program, told VOXXI.

“At certain levels, many of these pollutants become highly harmful to human health, especially for those living in areas with high concentrations of pollution,” she added. “Where air pollution is concerned, Latinos are especially vulnerable because they live in regions with the worst air contamination.”

Now, Latinos can add an increased risk for heart attack to the list of pollution-related concerns.

Close the Gap, an awareness campaign created specifically to bring attention to heart health disparities, indicates heart diseases are already a leading cause of death for Hispanics in the U.S. Among Mexican American adults alone, for example, 34.4 percent of women and 31.6 percent of men suffer from cardiovascular disease.

While the Rice University data found an overall increase in heart attack risk for all people exposed to smog, Hispanics were not specifically named in the study data as a high-risk group. It is not known if the Houston-specific study found a higher prevalence of cardiac arrest among men, non-Hispanic blacks and the elderly due to unique population densities or due to outstanding health factors already predisposing those groups to heart disease.

This article was first published in Voxxi.

Hope Gillette is an award winning author and novelist. She has been active in the veterinary industry for over 10 years, and her experience extends from exotic animal care to equine sports massage. She shares her home with four cats, a dog, a horse, and her tolerant husband.