Pennsylvania Children’s Environmental Health

Pennsylvania Children's Environmental Health

Pennsylvania’s landscape is a mix of Appalachian mountains, river valleys, and busy metropolitan areas. As one of the original thirteen colonies, the state’s history is deeply tied to early American industries of coal, steel, and rail – including the famous Andrew Carnegie, whose work shaped the economy and industry across the country.

Today, Pennsylvania’s economy is highly diverse, spanning healthcare, education, technology, and manufacturing. However, the legacy of such heavy industry has remained in the environment. Philadelphia in the east and Pittsburgh in the west bookend rugged mountains, plateaus, and waterways. The many rivers, forests, parks, and wildlife habitats provide ample space for recreation and environmental stewardship across the state, but particularly throughout the more rural western portions.

One way the state has dealt with legacy pollution is by beginning to treat millions of gallons of mine drainage per day from abandoned facilities. One new facility is supporting the restoration of 25 miles of creek and viable fishing area. Pennsylvania has also joined the charge towards PFAS regulation and prohibition via a series of bills introduced in 2025 that would explore and prohibit PFAS in hydraulic fracturing operations, firefighting equipment, public water, and biosolids. In 2024, the state also announced just under $1 million in grants for environmental education projects focusing on environmental justice, climate, and water.

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

Key Children's Environmental Health Indicators for Pennsylvania

Safe Drinking Water:
45.3% of public water utilities had drinking water violations in 2023.
National average: 27.6%

Air Quality:
42.83% of children under age 18 live in counties with unhealthy levels of air pollution. Air quality was monitored in 40 out of 67 counties in Pennsylvania in 2024.
Nationwide: 39.88% of children

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

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

Asthma:
8.1% of children under age 18 have asthma (2022-2023).
Nationwide: 6.6%

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

Blood Lead Levels:
4.57% of tested children under age 6 have elevated blood lead levels (2023).
Nationwide: 1.3% (2021)

Neurodevelopmental Disorders:
9.0% of children age 3-17 have ADD or ADHD (2022-2023).
Nationwide: 10.5%

4.6% of children age 3-17 have Autism Spectrum Disorder (2022-2023).
Nationwide: 3.9%

Federal Support to Pennsylvania 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 Pennsylvania

QuickFacts. 2024. U.S. Census Bureau.

Percent of Children in Pennsylvania Living in Poverty

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

Pennsylvania 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, 0% of Wyoming children under age 18 live in counties that received a failing grade for at least one pollutant. This only considers the 14 counties where air quality data is monitored, collected, and sufficient (out of 23).

American Lung Association. 2024 State of the Air. Report card: Wyoming. 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.

Delaware 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).

National Childhood Blood Lead Surveillance Data

Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program. 2024. U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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.

Under-testing and Under-reporting of children's blood lead levels

Delaware 2023 BLL data is from the the Childhood Blood Lead Surveillance in Delaware 2023 Annual 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 California. 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.

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.