Air Pollution & Children's Health - Essay Sample

Introduction

The research paper under review is a study done by Prachi Singh, Sagnik Dey, Sourangsu Chowdhury, and Kunal Bali regarding the relationship between air pollution and children's health. The Brookings Press published the study in 2019. The analysis will focus on the quality of the research and its implications on human health.

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The researchers have stated the aim of the study as examining the effect of outdoor air pollution on children's growth and development. The purpose of the paper has been clearly stated, and this gives the reader precise information on what the researchers investigated in the study. However, documenting the research problem alone does not make a research paper worth reading. The scholars must prove that there is a problem worth investigating. In this respect, Singh et al. have done a remarkable work by clearly showing that there is a research gap concerning the effect of outdoor air pollution on the developmental health children in polluted cities of India. The clarity has been achieved by reviewing previous studies done by other scholars on air pollution and children's health. The researchers found that no studies have been done in India to investigate how air pollution affected growth and development in children. Such a void in the research gap means that findings from the study add valuable information to the scientific community.

The other area that requires examination is whether the researchers have identified the dependent and independent variables. Based on earlier evidence, Singh et al. hypothesized that pollution negatively affects fetal development. In this regard, outdoor air pollution is the independent variable, while the height-for-age and weight-for-age are the dependent variables. The presence of dependent and independent variables enables the reader to understand what the researchers were actually interested in investigating. Since these are variables perfectly captured in the study, it is worth concluding that the work of Singh at al. commands top quality.

The sample and sample size are essential elements in any study because they enable a researcher to investigate a small group of people representing a larger population. In this case, the sample has been concisely stated as women who gave birth during a particular period. The study sampled 601, 509 households with 700, 000 women aged 15-49 taking part in the survey. These figures provide a vivid description of the participants, which eliminates the ambiguity in the research. The sample size is also adequate to enable the researchers to generalize with the overall population. Sampling such a considerable number of participants is quite comprehensive because it can be generalized with the population of women living in polluted environments in India. Therefore, Singh and colleagues have done excellently in this regard as well.

Quality research must have the results, and the conclusions arrived from the analysis of those results. The results of the study show that there is a relationship between outdoor air pollution and children's health. The findings indicate that exposure to outdoor air pollution for women affects the development of their children during pregnancy. These effects can even be manifested even after the child has been born. Consequently, the researchers concluded that air pollution causes stunted growth in children. However, the quality of the study lies in the fact that the findings and conclusions are in agreement with the purpose of the study. For a research paper to be of exceptional quality, conclusions must meet the purpose of the study. Singh at al. have correctly linked their findings to the purpose of the study; hence this is top-class scientific research. Overall, the main elements of a research study have been featured, and the organization/flow of the work meets the requirements for published papers. Such is a great work.