(WXYZ) — Out of 100 cities, Detroit is ranked first when it comes to pre-term births. The unsettling fact has researchers trying to figure out why. One of the potential factors is air pollution.
Detroit prides itself on being an industrial city, a leader in tech and innovation, but now, teams of scientists are working to see if the industries and pre-term births are linked.
Davonna Lewis was pregnant with twins, something that was actually common in her family. What wasn't common – going into labor at 30 weeks.
"I was like, 'oh my god, what's wrong?' I told my mom, 'I think I'm in labor' and she was like, 'I think we should go now,'" Lewis said.
She listened, and the staff at Henry Ford Hospital was able to delay her labor for nearly a month, with Lewis giving birth to Zion and Shakur at 34 weeks. Full term for twins is 37 weeks.
In 2020, one in seven babies were born prematurely in Detroit – equal to 14.4%. That number jumps to 15.9% for Black babies in the city. The national average is 10.5%.
"We were shocked to learn that Detroit, among 100 US cities with preterm birth rate, it’s got the highest preterm birth rate and the environmental contribution to that health consequence, is really unknown," Meliisa Runge-Morris, the director of the Institute of Environmental Health Science at Wayne State University, said.
She's part of a group of scientists and engineers that recently got $11.3 million in grants and five years to research how volatile organic compounds impact not only the air we breathe outside but inside our homes as well.
“There have been so many different dry-cleaning businesses in different parts of neighborhoods and gas stations and places that people have long forgotten about that have left contamination in the soil," Tim Dittrich, a researcher, said.
That can possibly seep through peoples' basements, so through fieldwork and soil extraction, researchers are not only tasked with unveiling the problem, but coming up with a solution.
"What we’re looking at within this project is developing sensors that people can install easily in their home," Carol Miller, a professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, said. "The sensors will give off a warning signal when levels of these volatile organic compounds become high."
Then, they would get their basements tested for radon.
The team is also planning to create a geographic mapping of the city to identify hotspots that need to be cleaned.
"The wonderful news is there is this new center here, there is this group actively looking into this particular issue," Miller said.
