Oregon Children’s Environmental Health

Oregon Children's Environmental Health

Oregon is renowned for its diverse natural beauty made of rugged Pacific Northwest coastline, lush temperate rainforest, volcanic peaks in the Cascade range, and high desert plateau to the east. Oregon’s economic and environmental history is closely tied to natural resource use including logging, fishing, and agriculture. The first major industry was the fur trade, while timber boomed later with the California Gold Rush, taking advantage of some of the world’s most productive forests. Ancient trees and multiple old growth forests create some of the most extraterrestrial-feeling backdrops in the Pacific Northwest.

Today, Oregon works to balance conservation, health, and economic planning. The state’s history of segregation and a stark urban-rural divide make for a challenging policy landscape where equity can be elusive. Recent environmental health initiatives in the state include a new Community Air Action Planning pilot program that will partner with community-based organizations to understand air quality at a local level as well as a Climate Protection Program with caps on greenhouse gas emissions. The state also passed H.B.3043 in 2023 which allowed the Oregon Health Authority to regulate a broader and longer group of chemicals specifically relating to provisions around chemicals in children’s health products.

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

Key Children's Environmental Health Indicators for Oregon

Safe Drinking Water:
49.9% of public water utilities had drinking water violations in 2023.
National average: 27.6%

Air Quality:
16.08% of children under age 18 live in counties with unhealthy levels of air pollution. Air quality was monitored in 13 out of 36 counties in Oregon in 2024.
Nationwide: 39.88% of children

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

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

Asthma:
4.2% of children under age 18 have asthma (2022-2023).
Nationwide: 6.6%

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

Blood Lead Levels:
1.1% of tested children under age 6 have elevated blood lead levels (2023).
Nationwide: 1.3% (2021)

Neurodevelopmental Disorders:
11.2% of children age 3-17 have ADD or ADHD (2022-2023).
Nationwide: 10.5%

4.2% of children age 3-17 have Autism Spectrum Disorder (2022-2023).
Nationwide: 3.9%

Federal Support to Oregon 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

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.