The Clearing the Air: Protecting Pennsylvania’s Children from Diesel Pollution collaborative report was released on World Asthma Day (May 6, 2025) with the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments, Moms Clean Air Force and Generation 180.
Children and infants are uniquely sensitive to air pollution. Diesel exhaust produced by medium and heavy-duty vehicles is composed of a dangerous mix of carcinogens, inflammatory agents and respiratory irritants, negatively affecting the developmental and respiratory health of children. A large body of research confirms that proximity to transportation-related air and noise pollution is most concentrated within the first five hundred meters of a major roadway.
In Pennsylvania, medium and heavy-duty trucks make up only 8% of vehicles on the road, but produce 62% of the nitrogen oxide (NOx) and 52% of the particulate matter (PM) emitted by on-road vehicles. Major trucking routes near K-12 schools, daycare centers and public parks across Pennsylvania pose safety risks, constant noise, and toxic impacts of diesel exhaust on children’s health. The Clearing the Air report provides an overview of the health impacts of trucking pollution on children. In addition, the report provides an analysis of youth-serving spaces located within 500 meters of selected interstate highways in Pennsylvania. Using publicly available data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services, and GIS mapping, 639 sites across Pennsylvania, including 122 public and private schools, 217 licensed childcare centers, and 300 public parks, used for recess, sports, and outdoor learning, were identified as sites in which children and caregivers are regularly exposed to elevated levels of air and noise pollution from heavy truck traffic.
There are already many solutions available to address the toxic impact of diesel exhaust on children’s health. In addition to the inclusion of two instructive case studies, Clearing the Air details numerous other measures that can be taken by schools, school districts, and policy makers to reduce pollution and mitigate exposure. The report includes a tabulated list of solutions and policy recommendations. Solutions include funding for zero emission manufacturing in Pennsylvania, as well as for zero emissions vans, trucks, and electric school buses. School districts can initiate other solutions such as creating green buffers and planting barriers, establishing and enforcing no-idling zones, or conducting real-time air quality monitoring.
Learn more and read the report here.
Author: Erin Johnson, MPH, MSN, RN (she, her) is a public health nurse, and Pennsylvania Nurse Organizer for the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments on the Advance Clean Trucks policy initiative.
