Long-term exposure to low levels of traffic pollution is associated with higher health care costs for elderly Oakland residents, according to a hyper-local study recently published in the peer-reviewed journal Atmospheric Environment.

Emergency room costs were nearly $500 higher per year for the average elderly patient when nitrogen dioxide, a common traffic pollutant, was 5.9 parts per billion higher than areas with nitrogen dioxide of 4.2 parts per billion.

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Keith Burbank is currently a fulltime reporter covering Alameda County and Oakland news for Bay City News. He has also worked on the Data Points project for Local News Matters, finding trends and stories about the region through data. In 2019, he was a California Fellow at the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism, producing a series about homeless deaths in Santa Clara County. He worked as a swing shift editor for the newswire for several years as well. Outside of journalism, Keith enjoys computer programming, math, economics and music.