NEW YORK, July 14 (UPI) -- Closing coal-fired power plants can have a direct, positive impact on children's cognitive skills, a U.S. university study indicates.
In Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health study, researchers tracked and compared the development of two groups of children born in Tongliang, China -- one in utero when a coal-fire plant was operating and one in utero after the plant closed, the university said in a news release.
The babies exposed to coal-burning emissions experienced significantly lower average developmental scores and reduced motor development at age 2, researchers said. In the second group, the adverse effects weren't longer observed and the frequency of delayed motor developmental skills was reduced significantly.
"This study provides direct evidence that governmental action to eliminate polluting coal-burning sources benefits children's neuro-development," said lead author Frederica Perera, professor of Environmental Health Sciences at the Mailman School of Public Health, and director of the Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health.
The findings were published in Monday's edition of Environmental Health Perspectives.
