Wealth

How bad will the smoke be for Angelenos’ health?

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WHere there It is the fire, there is smoke. For the people of Los Angeles, this will add misery. Some people already suffer from burning throat and irritated eyes. Several miles of forest fires, people wear masks. The stores are running out. Fires may also cause long -term problems.

When the fire consumes household items such as batteries and plastic, toxins are released in the air. A study in the facts of the National Academy of Science in 2024 found that long -term exposure to wild smoke was linked to increased deaths from heart disease and diabetes. Other studies have found harmful effects, such as high blood pressure and the weakest immune system.

Forest fires can also affect learning. Nine schools were damaged or destroyed before no Fires and more than half a million children were affected by the closure of schools. After the disturbances in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, mathematics decreased by 0.10 and 0.25 standard deviations (equivalent to 13 to 31 days of learning).

Breathing smoke may be bad for small brains. At small doses, the effect can barely discover: A study at Stanford University found that exposure to wildfire smoke at some point during the academic year reduced the degrees of testing of students through the equivalent of less than a day of learning. But forest fires have grown more intense since 2016, when the study ended, Marshall Burke, one of its authors. It is estimated that the fires this month may cause learning loss from three to four days for primary school students whose schools have not been destroyed. It is not a disaster, perhaps, but an additional burden is not welcome to the city of suffering.

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