Annual Cost of Environmentally Related Childhood Illnesses in Maine Asessed at $380.9 Million
Contact: Mary Davis, (617) 627- 4719, or Joe Carr (207) 581-3571 Note: Prof. Davis will be available for interviews on Friday afternoon. She will also present a seminar on this research at 3:15 p.m. Friday in UMaine’s Neville Hall.
ORONO, Maine – A new study by a University of Maine economist estimates the cost of preventable, environmentally related childhood illnesses in Maine — including lead poisoning, asthma, childhood cancer, and neurobehavioral disorders – totals $380.9 million annually.
Environmental economist and researcher Mary Davis says her study presents a conservative assessment of the damaging effects of childhood diseases and the costs of caring for these children. A report on her study, titled “An Economic Cost Assessment of Environmentally Related Childhood Diseases in Maine,” also estimates the potential reduction in lifetime income and educational opportunity for children permanently afflicted by childhood diseases.
“Overall, the aggregate annual cost of environmentally attributable illnesses in Maine children is estimated to be $380.9 million per year, ranging between $319.4 million and $484.4 million,” Davis writes in her report. “It is important to note that the economic costs outlined in this report represent preventable childhood illnesses, and, as such, could be fully avoided if environmental exposures in children were eliminated.”
Davis, an adjunct faculty member in the UMaine School of Economics, says she conducted her research independently because of her interest in children’s health issues and because of the plethora of environmental initiatives expected to surface in the Maine legislature as a result of LD 2048, “An Act To Protect Children’s Health and the Environment from Toxic Chemicals in Toys and Children’s Products,” passed by the legislature last year. The bill requires Maine to adopt a list of priority chemicals of high concern, forces manufacturers to disclose the toxic chemicals they add to products, and authorizes the state to require safer alternatives. The report is “directly relevant to the state’s investment in the process that the new law has set into motion,” Davis says.
“The report says if you eliminated all the environmental exposures, you would stand to save this much money in these categories,” says Davis, who also is an assistant professor in the Department of Urban and Environmental Planning at Tufts University and holds a joint appointment with the Department of Environmental Health at the Harvard School of Public Health. Davis’s research on the cost and effects on children of second-hand smoke contributed to a 2008 state law banning smoking in motor vehicles with children inside.
Davis says the findings of her research indicate the prevalence of a “new pediatric morbidity,” a changing pattern of more childhood illnesses, including asthma and cancer, being caused more often by environmental factors than genetic susceptibility or infectious diseases.
Some highlights of Davis’s findings:
The total annual cost of childhood lead poisoning is $268 million, a number that represents the lost lifetime earning potential of children born in the state each year from lead exposure.
Treatment for environmentally attributable neurobehavioral disorders including autism, ADD/ADHD, cerebral palsy and mental retardation cost an estimated $100.9 million annually, according to Davis’s report.
The cost of treating asthma in children is estimated at $8.8 million a year in Maine and treating childhood cancer costs more than $2.5 million a year, Davis calculates.
Davis notes in her report that Maine, like other states, is working to address environmentally attributable exposure of children to toxins and pollutants, but more can be done. With better consumer education and improved chemical-management and control policies, children’s health could be improved.