{"id":9964,"date":"2026-04-03T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/keck.usc.edu\/news\/?p=9964"},"modified":"2026-04-07T11:45:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T18:45:09","slug":"children-living-near-the-salton-sea-in-southern-california-show-slower-lung-function-growth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/keck.usc.edu\/news\/children-living-near-the-salton-sea-in-southern-california-show-slower-lung-function-growth\/","title":{"rendered":"Children living near the Salton Sea in Southern California show slower lung function growth"},"content":{"rendered":"\n \n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
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\n\n \n Press Release<\/span>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n \n
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Children living near the Salton Sea in Southern California show slower lung function growth<\/h1>\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n \n
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Researchers from the Keck School of Medicine of USC monitored 369 children for an average of two years in one of the first long-term studies of rural air pollution in Southern California.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n

\n Zara Abrams<\/span>\n \n April 03, 2026<\/span>\n <\/div>\n \n \n
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The Salton Sea, a saline lake near the United States-Mexico border, formed in 1905 when the Colorado River broke through an irrigation canal. (Photo\/Wikimedia Commons)<\/p>\n<\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>\n \n \n \n\n<\/div>\n \n\n <\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n\n \n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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Children who live within 11 kilometers of the Salton Sea, a drying body of water with a high concentration of salts in Imperial Valley, California, have slower lung function growth between ages 10 and 12 than children who live farther away. The impact is comparable to living within 500 meters of a freeway and could affect respiratory health into adulthood. The study, funded in part by the National Institutes of Health, was just published in JAMA Network Open.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Salton Sea, a saline lake near the United States-Mexico border, formed in 1905 when the Colorado River broke through an irrigation canal. Today, the lake is shrinking due to drought, heat and water diversions, exposing large areas of dry lakebed that release dust into the air as fine particles. This type of pollution is known to increase risk for lung, heart, immune and neurological problems.<\/span><\/p>\n

Local surveys have tracked respiratory problems, including asthma incidents, but the <\/span>Keck School of Medicine of USC<\/span><\/a>-led group is the first to look directly at changes in lung capacity. Their findings on lung function patterns over time could have implications well beyond Imperial Valley, as drought and rising temperatures cause other lakes, such as the Great Salt Lake in Utah and the Aral Sea in Central Asia, to shrink and emit dust.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOur findings are concerning because they may have long-term health implications. Research suggests that if lung growth is reduced during a critical development period such as adolescence, that can lead to increased risk for respiratory, cardiovascular, and metabolic diseases later in life,\u201d said Fangqi Guo, PhD, a postdoctoral research associate in population and public health sciences at the Keck School of Medicine and the study\u2019s first author.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lung function typically undergoes a growth spurt in adolescence, then peaks in young adulthood. More research is needed to understand what happens when development is interrupted, but ongoing problems with lung capacity could have lasting health consequences.<\/span><\/p>\n

Dust exposure and lung function<\/b><\/h2>\n

The Keck School of Medicine team worked with Comite\u0301 Civico del Valle, a longstanding local community organization, to recruit children for the first long-term health study in the region. Researchers followed 369 children, whose average age was 10 when the study began, for roughly two years.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lung function was measured in two ways: forced vital capacity (FVC) and forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1). FVC measures how much air the lungs can expel after a deep breath and FEV1 tests how quickly that air can be pushed out of the lungs. Taken together, these measures help show whether or not air is flowing normally through the lungs.<\/span><\/p>\n

The researchers also calculated the distance between each child\u2019s home and the Salton Sea and obtained data on fine particle pollution and spikes in dust levels from local air quality monitors. In their analysis, they controlled for the effects of age, sex, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, height, body mass index and respiratory health at the beginning of the study.<\/span><\/p>\n

Children who lived within 11 kilometers of the Salton Sea had 52.18 milliliters per year lower growth in FVC and 38.7 milliliters per year lower growth in FEV1 than children who lived farther away. More hours of exposure to high dust levels were also linked to lower FVC and FEV1 growth, especially for children living closer to the Sea.<\/span><\/p>\n

Protecting long-term health<\/b><\/h2>\n

These findings add to the <\/span>group\u2019s previous research<\/span><\/a> showing that more than 1 in 5 children in the region has asthma, nearly triple the national average. Those findings suggest that this population could face lung, heart and metabolic issues later in life if the trends are not reversed.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t yet know whether these changes are permanent. Some of the damage could potentially be mitigated if environmental exposures are reduced, because children\u2019s lungs are still developing,\u201d said <\/span>Shohreh F. Farzan, PhD<\/span><\/a>, associate professor of population and public health sciences at the Keck School of Medicine and the study\u2019s co-senior author.<\/span><\/p>\n

California officials are already working to address the environmental and health consequences of the drying lake through a 10-year plan known as the Salton Sea Management Program. Researchers say more comprehensive action is needed to protect children\u2019s health, both in California and around the world as hot, dry conditions worsen.<\/span><\/p>\n

Next, the team will continue to monitor the children to learn whether the effects on lung function persist into adolescence and adulthood. They are also studying which components of the dust are most harmful as part of a broader investigation of air pollution in Imperial Valley, including dust from the Salton Sea, windblow desert dust, diesel emissions and other sources.<\/span><\/p>\n

About this research<\/b><\/h2>\n

In addition to Guo and Farzan, the study\u2019s other authors are Sandrah P. Eckel from the Department of Population and Public Health Sciences, Keck School of Medicine of USC, University of Southern California; Jill E. Johnston, Elizabeth M. Kamai and Dayane Duenas Barahona from the University of California, Irvine; Luis Olmedo, Esther Bejarano and Christian Torres from Comite\u0301 Civico del Valle, Brawley, California; and Christopher Zuidema and Edmund Seto from the University of Washington, Seattle, Washington.<\/span><\/p>\n

This work was supported by the National Institute\u00a0of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) Southern California Environmental Health Sciences\u00a0Center [5P30ES007048-21S1; 5P30ES007048-22S1] and the\u00a0Keck School of Medicine of USC 2017-2018 Dean\u2019s Pilot Funding Program. Funding for expanded enrollment and longitudinal follow-up of the cohort was\u00a0provided by NIEHS [R01ES029598; 3R01ES029598-04S1].\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n\n <\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":278,"featured_media":9965,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[81,169,20],"class_list":["post-9964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-press-release","tag-department-of-population-and-public-health-sciences","tag-latest","tag-research"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nChildren living near the Salton Sea in Southern California show slower lung function growth<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, 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