Lived in the Bayview Hunters Point(BVHP) for 9 years and
thinking in retrospect, I can relate my son’s childhood asthma and my husband’s
chronic bronchitis to the poor air quality which was impacted by variety of different
sources, including diesel and gasoline from vehicles traveling on the highway
280 and 101, anxious gas fumes from the southeast wastewater treatment facility, pollution from the PG&E hunter’s point power plant, and the Mirant power plant
which is less than a mile away, and air emissions from hundreds of industrial activities,
most notably those located in the hunter’s point naval shipyard. BVHP is part
of an area designated as non attainment for state and federal ozone air quality standards.
Air pollution is deadly, it is important
for me to join the alliance of nurses for health environments, a network of
nurses from around the country, who act on the notion that our environment and
health are inextricably connected. Environmental toxicants have been linked
with the exacerbation of asthma, COPD, and CHF, breast, prostate, and blood
cancers, and other cardiac and neurological disorders. Healthcare providers can
through education protect the health of their consumers and include
environmental health assessment in their history talking. Contact and report to EPA, OSHA or the
appropriate health office of any environmental health issues of concern.
RNs and NPs are expertly situated to address environmental health risks. Providing patient education is indeed critical. You're right, the air quality (or lack thereof) in BVHP is highly likely to be the etiology of your family's respiratory illnesses. This is a critical item to catalogue in a patient's Hx. Also almost immediately across the Bay is the Port of Oakland and its attendant facilities which produce high levels of toxins.
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