School Bus Emissions, Student Health, and Academic Performance

Austin, Wes; Heutel, Garth; Kreisman, Daniel

doi:10.3386/w25641

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…They also estimated a 0.03 pp increase in attendance for a district with the average level of fleet retrofits in their study (19%). Finally, one unpublished study has looked at national-level impacts of a separate EPA competitive grant programme, which also funds school bus retrofits and replacements 46 . The author reported similar gains on standardized testing as those seen in Austin et al 29 and very small improvements in local air quality; attendance was not studied.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Randomized design evidence of the attendance benefits of the EPA School Bus Rebate Program

et al. 2023

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Approximately 25 million children ride buses to school in the United States. While school buses are the safest school transport from an accident perspective, older buses often expose students to high levels of diesel exhaust. Because these exposures can adversely impact health, which may lead to more missed school, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has spent millions of dollars to hasten the transition of school bus fleets to cleaner vehicles. Here, we leveraged the randomized allocation of the EPA’s 2012–2017 School Bus Rebate Program funding to causally assess the district attendance impacts of upgrading buses. Districts randomly selected for funding had greater attendance improvements after the lottery than unselected districts, resulting in over 350,000 estimated additional student days of attendance each year (95% confidence interval = −70,678 to 772,865) due to the use of EPA funds. Attendance improvements were greatest when the oldest buses were replaced and for districts with high ridership on applicant buses. Extrapolating our results nationwide, we expect that the replacement of all pre-2000 model year school buses would lead to more than 1.3 million additional student days of attendance per year (95% confidence interval = 247,443 to 2,406,511). Given the importance of attendance to educational success, we conclude that increasing the pace at which older, highly polluting buses are replaced positively impacts student attendance.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Randomized design evidence of the attendance benefits of the EPA School Bus Rebate Program

et al. 2023

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How air pollution threatens brain health

Peeples¹

2020

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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The buzz of a leaf blower and its gaseous fumes fill the air outside a lab facility at the University of Washington in Seattle. Inside the building, neurotoxicologist Lucio Costa is investigating how polluted air-such as garden tool exhaust-could be bad for the brain. Next to the building sits a 5,500-watt diesel generator, enclosed in a metal box. Pipes carry the diesel exhaust-the same stuff emitted by diesel engines in vehicles and heavy equipment-into the facility, across an exposed ceiling and into a room where plastic cages of mice are stacked high against the wall. Tubes filter the diesel exhaust through the cages, Costa explains, in an effort to mimic the contaminated air you might breathe while sitting in traffic or living near a busy road. After spending most of his career studying mercury, pesticides, and flame retardants, Costa knows well that many toxins in the environment can hurt the brain. But only in the last several years has the possibility of air pollution as a culprit crossed his mind. A growing body of literature on the topic inspired him to begin research in this diesel lab. "For a long time, I thought that air pollution was affecting mostly the lungs and the cardiovascular system and not the brain," says Costa. "So I stayed away from any issue related to air pollution." Now, mounting evidence seems to link a variety of neurological problems to dirty air. Troubling recent findings include hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease Although stay-at-home orders have provided some respite from major pollution in cities such as Delhi, India, overall pollution increases may be causing not only cardiovascular problems but cognitive decline. Image credit: Shutterstock/ Saurav022.

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