As Air Pollution Rises, Local Programs Help South Seattle Families Breathe Easier

Osiris Brown's room is filled with Spider-Man toys and books for him and his younger brother. In the corner is a large air-conditioning machine and an air purifier. And scattered throughout his room and the house are emergency albuterol sulfate inhalers.

At 5 years old, Osiris can't really describe what happens when he gets an asthma attack. In between gasping breaths, words like "can't," "breathe," and "inhaler" are sometimes able to escape, long enough for his parents to grab one of his rescue inhalers and place the mask of the spacer chamber on his face.

He doesn't remember what happens when his asthma attacks occur either. Osiris has some difficulty understanding how to administer the medication himself, or that he can't keep pumping it every five seconds just to breathe air.

Right after Osiris was born in 2019, his parents, Kristin Patrick-Brown and Owen Brown, could hear something wrong with his breathing. They described it as faint wheezing. They continually returned to the hospital to ask doctors what was wrong with their baby, having to hand Osiris to doctors from their car in an effort to reduce the spread of COVID-19.

"We would go for a regular checkup and mention the wheezing, and they'd be like, 'Oh, it's normal,' or — this is a trigger for me — 'Let's wait and see,'" Kristin said.

Osiris wasn't able to start speaking until he was 3, so he couldn't tell his parents about his breathing conditions. He would often be awake throughout the night, coughing nonstop, and his parents would try to help in any way they could, turning on a humidifier, administering children's medications, or using Vicks VapoRub.

After several years, Owen had the idea that Osiris could have asthma. At one point, the family went into urgent care at Seattle Children's Hospital, and their doctor listened to Osiris' lungs and diagnosed him with reactive airway disease, since children under the age of 5 can't be diagnosed with asthma. After Osiris turned 5, he was diagnosed with silent asthma. And when Osiris tried albuterol for the first time, the doctor said his lungs sounded a million times better.

Some of Osiris' asthma triggers include hot and cold weather, overexerting himself, getting too excited, or panicking. His parents crank the heat to 80 degrees Fahrenheit in his room during winter, and they place the AC in his shared room with his brother in summer.

Anytime Osiris leaves the house, he is required to carry a backpack that contains his rescue inhaler and a tag with his name that says "4 pumps." Osiris' parents gave a kit to his school with his name, date of birth, an albuterol inhaler, a fluticasone inhaler, and a spacer chamber.

This kit is one of many things the Brown family received after they signed up for the King County Community Health Worker Asthma Program. Along with this kit, the family has received hypoallergenic pillow and bed sheets, air purifiers and filters, a Hoover vacuum and bags, an asthma-friendly cleaning supplies kit, and more. The program, which has served the region for 20 years, sends materials to ease asthma symptoms, visits homes to assess conditions, and provides education on how to mitigate attacks for patients or family members who care for those with asthma.

The Brown family started the program a few months ago, and Kristin and Owen can already see the difference in how it has helped make it easier for their son to breathe. But the program can only address the symptoms of asthma — its underlying causes are embedded in the South End, where the Browns live, and where children have the highest rates of asthma hospitalization in Seattle.

Uneasy Breathing in the Emerald City

The Brown family moved from Brooklyn, New York, and ultimately settled in Seattle's Beacon Hill neighborhood because of its culture and diversity as well as its proximity to public transportation. Kristin says the area of New York where she grew up was situated between several major bus depots. Here in Washington, she hoped the air would be cleaner, but her child would cough through the night and miss school because of the major freeways right next to their apartment building.

Air pollution can increase your chances of developing lung diseases like asthma or exacerbate existing cases. And because of a combination of redlining and nearby polluting industries, South Seattle, including Beacon Hill, is subject to worse air pollution than other areas of the city — and is simultaneously a more affordable place to live.

"My background, with my family and our immigrant backgrounds, we don't have generational wealth to work with. My husband and I both have college degrees, but we have student loans, and we're starting from scratch. We're really starting from the bottom," Kristin said. "When you're pulling and scraping together to get a down payment to afford a place that you're going to buy, what really are your options? They're limited."

It's not just children who are impacted. According to 2023 data on emergency room hospitalization rates for asthma, more people in South Seattle were admitted than the King County average. Researchers say location and preexisting conditions can make residents of the South End more vulnerable to asthma in comparison with other parts of the city.

A 2023 report based on a 2022 survey of 167 South Park and Georgetown residents found that the Duwamish Valley experiences high exposure to pollution from the river itself, heavy industry, and transportation, since three highways and two airport flight paths intersect with the neighborhood.

The study gathered data through door-to-door and online surveys in English, Spanish, Khmer, Vietnamese, and Chinese, and it was a collaboration between University of Washington researchers, the Duwamish River Community Coalition, the City of Seattle, Public Health – Seattle & King County, and the Washington State Department of Health.

Researchers also noted that South Park's non-white population is nearly twice the Seattle average, 40% of residents speak a language other than English, and 59% of survey respondents said they experienced environmental hazards.

Anjum Hajat, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Washington, confirms that the combination of airport traffic, highway air pollution, and industry contribute to higher rates of air pollution and asthma in South Seattle, Georgetown, and South Park.

Beacon Hill, where the Browns live, is informally known for the "Beacon Hill Pause," when residents must briefly stop conversing as a plane roars overhead. "As somebody who came from New York, to hear, 'Welcome to the Evergreen State, to the fresh outdoors, where you can be in the city and look towards the mountains and hike in the afternoon,'" Kristin said, "but what they don't say is that when you walk your child from your home to day care a few blocks away, you can count at least 15 airplanes [flying overhead]."

The concentration of Black, Brown, Native American/Indigenous, and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander communities within a 10-mile radius of the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport experience the highest rates of outdoor air pollution, according to Jan Capps, Public Health's Asthma and Community Health Worker program manager.

To mitigate the effects of asthma, the public health department created the Community Health Worker Asthma Program, the program the Brown family enrolled in to receive Osiris' equipment.

The department also trained and provided supplies for the Duwamish River Community Coalition's DAISY program, or Duwamish Air Improvement Study for Youth, which aims to reduce childhood asthma in the Duwamish Valley.

Kristin says she hopes the Community Health Worker Asthma Program and other programs like it will continue to help other children.

"The asthma program, again, thank God for them, because they are providing things that are extremely helpful for us," Kristin said. Kristin herself had childhood asthma that she grew out of, but she didn't grow up with air purifiers or an AC unit — just an inhaler. She can see the positive impact of the program's more holistic approach on her son's quality of life.

Clearing the Air

The Duwamish River Community Coalition (DRCC) is one of the community organizations that has been at the forefront of clearing the air in neighborhoods like Beacon Hill, Georgetown, and South Park.

In 2013, the coalition's Duwamish Valley Cumulative Health Impacts Analysis (CHIA) report with the University of Washington found that residents in Georgetown and South Park have a life expectancy of 13 years less than the life expectancy of residents in Laurelhurst, one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the city, in northeastern Seattle. Its 2024 State of the Air Report included DRCC's goals for reducing the burden of poor air quality and asthma rates for Duwamish Valley residents, including reducing transportation emissions and industrial pollution via legislation and regulation, as well as improving air quality through air monitoring and planting trees, among other efforts.

"It takes time; bureaucracy, unfortunately, is not always alongside you," said Paulina López, executive director of DRCC. López says they are pushing for legislation to make it harder for industries to pollute the air and water nearby, and to discontinue permits that allow those industries to continue polluting.

Along with nonprofit Front and Centered, DRCC pushed for the Healthy Environment for All (HEAL) Act in 2021, which created the Environmental Justice Task Force, a 16-member committee that created 26 policy recommendations to embed environmental justice into state legislation.

The organization is continuing to monitor for pollutants from 300 industries that operate in its area and discharge highly toxic metals into the Duwamish River's waters, and from vehicles that use diesel, which emit particle pollution when driving through the neighborhood.

The DRCC also works with the Port of Seattle, one of the founding partners of the DRCC Clean Air Program, to mitigate the impacts the Port's operations have on communities near the Duwamish River and the Sea-Tac airport. The Port currently has the Charting the Course to Zero: Port of Seattle's Maritime Climate and Air Action Plan (MCAAP), which aims to reduce the seaport's greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050. Some of its efforts include reducing energy use in port buildings to changing the fuel used in fleet vehicles, as well as reducing commute emissions by employees.

Around 40% of the state's gas emissions come from transportation, including cars, planes, and boats, according to the State Department of Ecology. The Port has created incentives for its vessels to use cleaner energy in the air and on the sea, but those will take time to fully reduce emissions to zero.

Beyond legislation and regulation, DRCC is committed to gathering community input and building community power. López says DRCC tables at community events at the library and hosts karaoke sessions for seniors to spread the word about pollution's impacts and the coalition's goals. It also reaches out in Spanish, Vietnamese, and Khmer, since many members speak languages other than English.

DRCC's Duwamish Valley Youth Corps Program hosts environmental justice workshop days at elementary schools, where grade-school children learn about the pollution in their neighborhoods and brainstorm solutions.

And through its DAISY program, DRCC is working with impacted communities to gather data with air quality sensors and use it to "advocate for emission reduction strategies. Waiting for upstream controls, such as industrial facility and truck traffic emissions reductions[,] may take years to implement. This study can take more immediate action."

Climate's Amplifying Impacts

Global emissions continue to drive climate change, which is worsening chronic illnesses, like asthma, by prolonging allergy season and causing hotter and more intense summers and wildfire seasons, according to data from Public Health.

Rising temperatures, increasing sea levels, and more greenhouse gas emissions can lead to increased exposures to air pollution and allergic diseases, which can trigger asthma, says Brad Kramer, Public Health's Climate and Health Equity Initiative lead manager.

Further, people who have chronic health conditions, such as asthma, have a harder time handling the extreme heat or smoke events that have become more regular. These events can be confusing for residents, since opening windows to ensure air flow can help alleviate symptoms, but keeping them closed is necessary when the skies are cloudy with smoke or temperatures are rising.

Just as higher rates of pollution are concentrated in South Seattle, Cat Hartwell, lead of the Climate and Health Adaptation Modeling Project (CHAMP) camp, says higher temperatures are concentrated in South King County, creating urban heat islands — when parts of the city absorb heat during the day because of concrete, asphalt, or industrial roof surfaces and continue to radiate the heat at night. Hartwell says these areas can be up to 20 degrees hotter than other parts of the city that have more green space or more residential buildings.

During the 2021 heat wave, the Brown family learned the importance of creating a temperate atmosphere for Osiris. At the heat's peak, 107 degrees Fahrenheit, they had to check into a hotel. That event was the reason Kristin and Owen bought a unit just for their sons' room.

"They specifically have this in their room for these hot days where it's 90-plus. We don't want to have the heat exacerbate [Osiris' asthma], so we have been so aware," Owen said. "As parents, we're still learning what his triggers are."

So far, Public Health has distributed nearly 6,000 air filters for airport communities and wildfire smoke, and it's created asthma kits with a HEPA air filter, teaching clients how to add it to a box fan during wildfire days in the summer.

The agency has created brochures, pamphlets, and comic books, which are available in 13 languages. It also has a heat warning system to send notifications out in advance when high temperatures are in the forecast.

"We're moving away from a reactive state to being more proactive," Kramer said.

Kristin says the program has been such a relief for Osiris and their family after years of not knowing what her son was suffering from or what would help. If it wasn't for the program, she says, they would've continued to struggle with constant hospital visits, additional missed school days, and more. Kristin says she hopes other parents are able to take advantage of the program so their children, too, can breathe a little easier.