New York State's Children and the Environment
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This report from the Children's Environmental Health Center Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai addresses the effects of chemicals on children.
Despite the fact that children's life expectancy has doubled over the last 100 years thanks to safe drinking water, environmental improvements, vaccines and antibiotics, children in New York today suffer from a wide array of chronic diseases, many of which are on the rise. Evidence is strong that environmental factors contribute to asthma, birth defects, developmental disorders, and obesity, among other conditions.
This report submits that diseases of environmental origin in children are preventable and that the prevention of these diseases will improve children's lives and potentially generate enormous cost savings. To improve the prevention and treatment of disease of environmental origin in New York's children, the Mount Sinai Children's Environmental Health Center recommends the creation of a statewide network of Centers of Excellence in Children's Environmental Health.