Air Pollution Still Plagues Nearly Half of Americans

An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: Air in the U.S. has gotten cleaner for decades, adding years to people's lives and preventing millions of asthma attacks, but nearly half of Americans still live with unhealthy air pollution, a new report finds. The report comes as the Trump administration is considering rolling back some key air quality regulations. Air quality across the country has improved dramatically since regulations like the Clean Air Act were put in place in the 1970s to govern sources of pollution like coal-fired power plants and emissions from diesel trucks. Despite that progress, the air is still unhealthy and polluted in many parts of the country. In 2023, nearly half of the country's inhabitants -- 156 million people -- lived in places heavy in smog or soot pollution that harms their lungs, hearts, and brains, according to the newest edition of the American Lung Association's State of the Air report.

'Both these types of pollution cause people to die. They shorten life expectancy and drive increases in asthma rates,' says Mary Rice, a pulmonologist at Harvard University. Pollution levels vary widely across the country, the report finds, with the worst soot pollution, averaged over the whole year, centered on California cities like Fresno and Bakersfield. Ozone pollution is highest in the Los Angeles region. Phoenix, Arizona, and Dallas, Texas, also rank in the top 10 most smog-heavy cities. Nationwide, people of color are about twice as likely to live somewhere with high soot and ozone pollution as white Americans. 'The Clean Air Act is one of the greatest success stories in our country,' says Rice. NPR notes that the law requires the EPA to revisit the science every five years, reassessing what health researchers have learned about the risks of breathing in poor air and adjusting the regulations accordingly.

'So the air quality standards have kept pace with the science over time, and levels of fine particulate matter have declined over the last 50-plus years,' Rice says. 'As a result, life expectancy is longer, and asthma rates have gone down.' 'We are best equipped to protect our health when we have all the information, like weather and air quality,' she says.

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