Illinois Children’s Environmental Health

Illinois Children's Environmental Health

Illinois, despite large swaths of midwestern agricultural land, also hosts Chicago, the third largest US city, in its northeast corner. Wide lane highways and trucking thruways snaking around the city remind travelers of the agricultural roots, while canals and rail lines speak to Chicago’s strategic geography. Visit Chicago during St. Patrick’s Day and you’ll see the Chicago River dyed green in an over 60 year old tradition. Meanwhile, traverse further south in the state, and you’ll find expansive prairies and somewhat warmer climates as the state expands closer to the southern regions of the US.

During the Industrial Revolution, Chicago became a major hub for the steel, meatpacking, manufacturing, commercial printing, and clothing industries among others. Throughout this time, Illinois and the city of Chicago’s strong working class communities were hotbeds of labor activism, which led to union formation, daily hour limits, and a push for sanitary conditions.

Many of these early economic developments are connected to the current challenges that Illinois faces with water quality, air quality, and elevated lead levels in Chicago water in particular. One way the state has responded to these threats is through a set of bills introduced in 2025 including S.B.0073, which would require testing and disclosure of toxic heavy metals in baby food, and S.B.0117, which would prohibit children’s products, apparel, food packaging, and other household use items from containing intentionally added PFAS.

In the profile below, you’ll find a set of key children’s environmental health indicators that illuminate Illinois’s environmental risks, children’s exposures, and emerging trends in child health and development.

Key Children's Environmental Health Indicators for Illinois

Safe Drinking Water:
26.2% of public water utilities had drinking water violations in 2023.
National average: 27.6%

Air Quality:
73.08% of children under age 18 live in counties with unhealthy levels of air pollution. Air quality was monitored in 23 out of 102 counties in Alaska in 2024.
Nationwide: 39.88% of children

Warming Temperatures:
4.3 degrees F warmer in 2024 than in 1970.
National average 3.9 degrees F warmer

Toxic Chemical Releases:
55 million pounds of toxic chemicals were disposed of or released in 2023.
United States 3.3 billion pounds

Asthma:
5.3% of children under age 18 have asthma (2022-2023).
Nationwide: 6.6%

Pediatric Cancer:
180 cases of pediatric cancer per 1 million population (2021).
Nationwide: 179 cases per 1 million

Blood Lead Levels:
4.9% of tested children under age 6 have elevated blood lead levels (2021).
Nationwide: 1.3% (2021)

Neurodevelopmental Disorders:
7.9% of children age 3-17 have ADD or ADHD (2022-2023).
Nationwide: 10.5%

2.7% of children age 3-17 have Autism Spectrum Disorder (2022-2023).
Nationwide: 3.9%

Federal Support to Illinois Within the Past Five Years

CDC-funded Lead Poisoning Prevention Program
CDC-funded Climate-Ready States & Cities Initiative
ATSDR State Cooperative Agreement Program
CDC National Asthma Control Program
CDC-funded Environmental Public Health Tracking Program
CDC State Biomonitoring Cooperative Agreement Program

Children's Environmental Health Indicators Selection Criteria

Each headline indicator should be a clear, understandable indicator of children’s environmental health, with broad relevance for a range of audiences at the state level – with relevance to the national level.

The indicators as a package should provide a representative picture of children’s health and relation to the environment.

Each indicator should be calculated using an agreed-upon (and published) method and accessible and verifiable data.

Each indicator should be calculated regularly (at least biennially), with a short lag between the end of the period and publication of the data.

The available data needed for the indicator must be sufficiently robust, reliable and valid.

Indicators must be comparable across all or very nearly all 50 U.S. states.

Indicator Notes and References

Number of Children in Illinois

QuickFacts. 2024. U.S. Census Bureau.

Percent of Children in Illinois Living in Poverty

Children living in poverty in Illinois. 2023. The Annie E. Casey Foundation.

Illinois Drinking Water Performance Dashboard

Public Water Systems with Any Violation – Fiscal Year 2023. Enforcement and Compliance History Online (ECHO). U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Air Pollution

In this profile, counties with “unhealthy” levels of air pollution are those receiving a grade of F for ozone and/or short-term particle pollution (PM2.5), and/or a grade of “Fail” for year-round particle pollution (PM2.5) in the American Lung Association’s 2024 State of the Air report. According to the report, 73.08% of Illinois children under age 18 live in counties that received a failing grade for at least one pollutant. This only considers the 23 counties where air quality data is monitored, collected, and sufficient (out of 102).

American Lung Association. 2024 State of the Air Report. Data from U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Air Quality System.

American Warming

Warming matters — it drives most of the hazards associated with climate change such as extreme weather, heat days, droughts, and heavy downpours. Children are more vulnerable to harm from extreme heat and to the other cascading effects of warming temperatures.

Climate at a Glance Statewide Haywood. 2024. Data from National Centers for Environmental Information, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association.

Toxic Release Inventory

EPA’s Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) tracks the management of certain toxic chemicals that may pose a threat to human health and the environment. Certain industrial facilities in the U.S. must report annually how much of each chemical is disposed of or released on- and off-site. Many of these chemicals are known carcinogens, developmental toxicants, and neurotoxicants, such as arsenic, lead, and mercury, that adversely impact children’s health.

Toxic Release Inventory Explorer Chemical Report. 2023. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Neurodevelopmental Notes

Mounting scientific research links environmental exposures with risk of Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Attention-Deficit Disorder (ADD), and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Neither genetics nor changing diagnoses or other artifacts fully account for the increased incidences of these conditions. ADHD, ADD, and ASD data are for California children aged 3-17 years.

ADHD, ADD, and ASD prevalence

2022-2023 National Survey of Children’s Health. Title V Maternal and Child Health Services Block Grant National Performance and Outcome Measures. Prevalence of current ADD or ADHD, age 3-17 years; and Prevalence of current Autism or Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), age 3-17 years. Data Resource Center for Child and Adolescent Health. Maternal and Child Health Bureau, Health Resources and Services Administration.

Asthma prevalence

A wealth of research links exposure to poor outdoor air quality, including high concentrations of ground-level ozone, with the exacerbation of children’s respiratory illnesses, including asthma. Several studies link it with the onset of childhood asthma.

2022-2023 National Survey of Children’s Health. Title V Maternal and Child Health Services Block Grant National Performance and Outcome Measures. Prevalence of current asthma, age 0-17 years. Data Resource Center for Child and Adolescent Health. Maternal and Child Health Bureau, Health Resources and Services Administration.

Illinois Childhood Cancers Incidence

Request for children age 0-19. Age-adjusted rate for 2021. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Wide-ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research (WONDER).

Childhood Blood Lead Surveillance Data

Illinois 2021 BLL data is from the Illinois Lead Program 2022 Annual Surveillance Report. Often the most vulnerable children are not tested, and not all who are tested get reported, so these values are likely an underestimate of the true scope of children’s elevated BLL in Illinois. There is no safe level of lead exposure for children. A potent neurotoxicant, lead reduces IQ and impairs other cognitive, behavioral, and developmental functions. In 2021 CDC lowered the BLL reference value from 5 to 3.5 μg/dL.

Assessing Child Lead Poisoning Case Ascertainment in the US, 1999–2010. Eric M. Roberts, Daniel Madrigal, Jhaqueline Valle, Galatea King and Linda Kite. Pediatrics April 2017, e20164266; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2016-4266.

Environmental exposures contribute to ADHD/ADD, ASD, and asthma

NIEHS/EPA Children’s Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Research Centers. 2017 Impact Report.

Pediatric Cancer Indicator Notes

Although cancer in children is rare, the rate of pediatric cancer has been increasing since the 1970s. It is the leading disease-related cause of death past infancy in U.S. children. Neither genetics nor improved diagnostic techniques can explain the increased rate.

According to the President’s Cancer Panel’s 2008-2009 Annual Report, “the true burden of environmentally induced cancer has been grossly underestimated.”

President's Cancer Panel

2008-2009 Annual Report. Reducing Environmental Cancer Risk. National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health.

Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program

FY2023 CDC-Funded Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Recipients.

ATSDR State Cooperative Agreement Program

APPLETREE Cooperative Agreement Directory. 2023-2028 Funding.

CDC National Asthma Control Program

State and City Partner Contacts and Programs.

CDC Environmental Public Health Tracking Network

About Funded Tracking Programs.

CDC State Biomonitoring Program

State Biomonitoring Grants.

All children deserve and need a safe and healthy environment to grow and develop. They need clean air to breathe, safe water to drink, nutritious food to eat, and healthy places in which to live, learn, and play. Early exposure to harmful agents can lead to acute and chronic adverse outcomes. Infants and children are especially vulnerable to environmental exposures because they breathe, eat and drink more, in proportion to their body size, than do adults, and because their bodies and brains are still developing.

A blueprint for Protecting Children’s Environmental Health Network set out to identify a set of CEHIs that can be used to provide an understanding of children’s environmental health at the state level. Through this process, CEHN found that robust, valid, and regularly updated state level data–that are comparable across most states–were not readily accessible. States need adequate funding and capacity to collect and make accessible reliable CEHI data in order to set goals and track progress towards improving children’s health.

Children are our future – society has a moral obligation to protect them. Exposure to environmental hazards can and must be prevented. Prevention requires strong environmental regulations, fully funded and supportive public and environmental health programs and a robust workforce.