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Nearly Half of Americans Breathe Unhealthy Air, New Report Finds

Medically reviewed by Carmen Pope, BPharm. Last updated on April 25, 2025.

By I. Edwards HealthDay Reporter

FRIDAY, April 25, 2025 — Breathing the air in nearly half of the United States could be putting the health of residents at risk.

A new American Lung Association report shows that 156 million people live in areas with unhealthy air.

The group’s annual "State of the Air" report found that smog and soot pollution are getting worse, not better.

The report looked at air quality data from 2021 to 2023. It found that 25 million more people than in the group's last report were breathing "unhealthy levels of air pollution."

That's more than in any other "State of the Air" report in the last decade, the association said.

Since the Clean Air Act became law in 1970, air pollution has gone down overall, said Laura Kate Bender, an assistant vice president at the lung association, told CBS News.

"The challenge is that over the last few years, we're starting to see it tick back up again and that's because of climate change, in part," she said. "Climate change is making some of those conditions for wildfires and extreme heat that drive ozone pollution worse for a lot of the country."

The city with the worst year-round and short-term particle pollution? Bakersfield, California, for the sixth year in a row.

What's more, it was ranked third worst for high ozone days.

In contrast, Casper, Wyoming, was listed as the cleanest city for year-round particle pollution, CBS News said.

Here are the top 10 cities with the worst year-round particle pollution, according to the association:

1. Bakersfield-Delano, Calif.

2. Visalia, Calif.

3. Fresno-Hanford-Corcoran, Calif.

4. Eugene-Springfield, Ore.

5. Los Angeles-Long Beach, Calif.

6. Detroit-Warren-Ann Arbor, Mich.

7. San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland, Calif.

8. Houston-Pasadena, Texas

9. Cleveland-Akron-Canton, Ohio

10. Fairbanks-College, Ark.

The report warned that pollution isn't just an issue in the west. Extreme heat and wildfires are spreading pollution across the country.

In fact, smoke from Canada's wildfires in 2023 caused unhealthy air quality even in the eastern parts of the U.S., the report pointed out.

Some of the findings came as a surprise, according to Kevin Stewart, the association’s environmental health director.

"I think we knew that the wildfire smoke would have an impact on air quality in the United States," he told CBS News. "I think we were surprised at the Lung Association by how strong the effect was, especially in the northeastern quadrant of the continental United States."

Last month, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced it will roll back 31 environmental rules, including ones pertaining to vehicle emissions, CBS News reported.

Bender said that puts decades of progress at risk.

"Unfortunately, we see that everything that makes our air quality better is at risk," she said. "The EPA is at risk — the agency that is protecting our health — through staff cuts, funding cuts. The regulations that have cleaned up our air over time are at risk of being cut. If we see all those cuts become reality, it's gonna have a real impact on people's health by making the air they breathe dirtier."

Lee Zeldin, the EPA administrator, argued that, instead, the deregulation will drive "a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion to drive down cost of living for American families, unleash American energy, bring auto jobs back to the U.S. and more," according to CBS News.

Air pollution has been linked to asthma, heart attacks, strokes, lung cancer and even poor brain function later in life.

"This air pollution is causing kids to have asthma attacks, making people who work outdoors sick and unable to work, and leading to low birth weight in babies," Kezia Ofosu Atta, the Lung Association’s advocacy director, told CBS News.

The report also found that Black Americans are more likely to suffer serious health problems from air pollution.

Disclaimer: Statistical data in medical articles provide general trends and do not pertain to individuals. Individual factors can vary greatly. Always seek personalized medical advice for individual healthcare decisions.

© 2025 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Posted April 2025

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