rigs by 2014 – to reduce the statewide particulate matter emitted from goods movement by 85 percent. A team that included Jerrett as well as Drs. Ying-Ying Meng (who led the study) and Beate Ritz from the Fielding School faculty conducted measurements at 71 sites in L.A. County and 49 sites in the San Francisco Bay Area to assess the traffic-related pollution levels in 2012 and 2013, in an effort to determine the impact the goods movement emissions reduction plan has had on air quality. Specifically, they wanted to know whether goods movement corridors (defined as places within 500 meters of truck-permitted freeways or main ports in the state) experienced greater reductions in air pollutants in the post-policy years than non-goods movement corridors (locations within 500 meters of freeways where trucks are prohibited) and residential areas. The study team found that reductions in traffic-related air pollutants in goods movement corridors were significantly greater than in other areas as a result of the policies. “These findings show what we would hope – that the regulatory policies are working as intended, to the particular benefit of these vulnerable populations within 500 meters of major truck routes,” says Jerrett. Now, the group is preparing to follow up with a study examining whether the exposure reductions have resulted in improvements in public health. Past studies have shown that people exposed to elevated levels of traffic-related pollutants have higher rates of asthma symptoms and reduced lung function, as well as greater susceptibility to cardiovascular disease and certain cancers. Using a large data set of California Medicaid recipients, the FSPH group will analyze the impact of the reduced exposures on health indicators such as medication use, emergency department visits and hospitalizations among populations with chronic conditions living in goods movement corridors. •
Potent Combination Dr. John Froines once believed he would have to choose between his two passions, science and policy. But as a national leader in identifying dangerous chemical exposures and then applying the findings toward regulations to protect health, he’s spent a career pursuing both.
IT’S A LONG WAY from the small town of Carpi in Northern Italy to the UCLA campus where Dr. John Froines has made his professional home for the last 34 years. But when Carpi’s mayor presented the Fielding School professor emeritus with the prestigious 2013 Collegium Ramazzini Award for his contributions in occupational and environmental health research and policy, it illustrated the long reach and worldwide recognition of Froines’ body of work. Over the course of a four-decades-plus career in the field of toxicology and exposure assessment, Froines has played an important role in some of the most seminal evidence-based policies to protect human health – from developing the federal standards for lead and cotton dust exposure in the late 1970s and identifying diesel exhaust as a toxic air contaminant 20 years later, to the 2013 case study he co-authored on California’s process for assessing risk and approving the use of methyl iodide as a fumigant for crops such as strawberries. The latter report, issued by the UCLA Fielding Schoolbased Sustainable Technology and Policy Program, pointed out the failure of the system in approving a chemical that a Froines-chaired committee concluded could not be used safely at any level. Throughout his career, Froines has gone up against powerful economic interests in his efforts to translate science into policies that protect the health of some of the most vulnerable populations – migrant farmworkers, blue-collar employees, and low-income families residing near freeways, among others. It’s been an ideal marriage of two passions
UCLA FIELDING SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH SPRING/SUMMER 2015
for someone who, in the early 1970s, found himself at a crossroads. FROINES HAD BEEN trained as a scientist at UC Berkeley and Yale before going on to postdoctoral work at the Royal Institution of Great Britain under a Nobel Laureate, Sir George Porter. But he also maintained a strong interest in social issues, and was active in politics and the anti-Vietnam War movement. “I had to figure out whether I was going to become a person focused on policy and politics, or whether I was going to do science,” he recalls. The question was resolved, and Froines’ career path set, when he was hired to serve as director of Vermont’s Office of Occupational and Radiological Health in 1974. “Getting involved in environmental and occupational issues in that way made me realize I could combine my scientific interest with social policy,” Froines says. During the Carter administration, Froines was tapped to serve as director of the Office of Toxic Substances for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). There, he authored landmark standards for cotton dust and lead – the only two standards, he notes, that OSHA has ever adopted for non-carcinogen toxicity. The cotton dust standard helped to eliminate byssinosis, a respiratory disorder that affected workers in the textile industry. The lead standard, designed to protect workers from the neurologic effects associated with the occupational use of lead, was promulgated despite strong industry opposition. After serving as deputy director of the National Institute for OccuContinued on next page
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