Amherst, Mass. (WGGB) — A research team out of the University of Massachusetts in Amherst has found that asthma rates and the costs from traffic related air pollution are much higher than once believed.

The team’s Resource Economist, Sylvia Brandt, along with colleagues in California and Switzerland, have found that the total cost of asthma due to pollution is much higher than past traditional risk assessments have indicated. They also found there is growing evidence that exposure to traffic-related air pollution is a cause of asthma and a trigger for attacks.

The study which was released this week in the early online version of the European Respiratory Journal, was conducted in Long Beach and Riverside, California communities with high regional air pollution levels and large roads near residential neighborhoods.

The researchers also found that total additional asthma-specific costs due to traffic-related pollution is about $18 million per year in that area, almost half of which is due to new asthma cases caused by pollution. People who live in cities with high traffic-related air pollution bear a higher burden of these costs than those who live in less polluted areas.

As part of the study they counted asthma cases attributable to air pollution and included a broader range of health care costs such as parents missed work days, extra doctor visits and travel time along with prescriptions.

The researchers found that a single episode of bronchitic symptoms cost an average $972 in Riverside and $915 in Long Beach. Bronchitic symptoms (daily cough, congestion or phlegm, or bronchitis for three months in a row) are a critical outcome for children with asthma.

“Overall, the results are relevant and applicable to many settings and families with children who have asthma. The total annual estimate between $3,800 and $4,000 represents 7 percent of median household income in our study in these two communities,” says Brandt. He addes, “This is troublesome because that is higher than the 5 percent considered to be a bearable or sustainable level of health care costs for a family.”

Riverside and Long Beach account for about 7 percent of the total population of California, which suggests that state-wide costs of asthma related to air pollution are truly substantial.

Brandt says, “Traditional risk assessment methods for air pollution have underestimated both the overall burden of asthma and the cost of the disease associated with air pollution. Our findings suggest the cost has been substantially underestimated and steps must be taken to reduce the burden of traffic-related pollution.”

This work was supported by California’s South Coast Air Quality Management District and its settlement funds from BP, as well as by the U.S. National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Hastings Foundation. Brandt and her team also worked with researchers at the University of Basel, Switzerland, Sonoma Technology, Inc. and the University of Southern California.