Children of color and from low-income families in Ohio and across the nation are not only exposed to more dangerous toxic chemicals including lead, tailpipe and other air pollution, plastics and pesticides; they also experience disproportionate harm to brain development compared to their white and higher income peers, according to a new report. Devon Payne-Sturges, associate professor of environmental health at the University of Maryland and the report's co-author, said five decades of data show poverty exacerbates the effect of pollution. "Studies have found that the combined experience, say, of exposure to lead in the environment -- and being from an impoverished community, or a low-income family -- actually worsened the negative cognitive impacts," Payne-Sturges reported. " ...