Nearly half of Americans now live with dangerous air quality: Report

Drawing on data from 2021 to 2023, a report released Wednesday by the American Lung Association’s State of the Air found worsening trends in both ozone and fine particulate pollution across the country, with 85 million people living in regions that received failing grades for year-round soot levels.

Short-term particle pollution also surged to its highest level in 16 years, impacting more than 77 million people, the report noted.

"These particles are incredibly tiny – a fraction of the width of a human hair – and they’re getting into people’s lungs and bloodstreams," said Dr. Panagis Galiatsatos, a pulmonary specialist at Johns Hopkins Medicine and a volunteer with the American Lung Association.

"As a lung doctor, I don’t have any medication that can really offset that. For pollution, we rely on good policies and legislation to protect lung health," he told CNN.

The most polluted areas for year-round particle exposure include Bakersfield, Visalia, and Fresno in California, alongside urban centers like Detroit, Houston, and the San Francisco Bay Area, according to the report.

Los Angeles-Long Beach topped the list for ozone pollution for a record 25th time, the group said.  

'We're failing millions'

The report also highlights stark disparities in exposure.

People of color are more than twice as likely as white Americans to live in neighborhoods with failing grades for multiple forms of pollution.

Hispanic populations are three times more likely to live in areas with failing grades across all categories.

Dr. Juanita Mora, a pulmonologist serving Chicago’s South Side, sees the effects firsthand.

"He was just outside playing in his yard," Mora told CNN, telling of a 7-year-old boy who was rushed to the emergency room during a spike in pollution.

"His parents had to rush him to the ER because he said he was having chest tightness and couldn’t stop coughing. As a doctor, I feel like we’re failing millions and millions of kids and adults."

Katherine Pruitt, national senior director for policy at the American Lung Association and a co-author of the report, attributed worsening ozone levels to a combination of unusually warm years and a spike in wildfires, including smoke drifting from Canadian fires.

"They bump up the ability to produce ozone-forming compounds," Pruitt told CNN.

The findings come as the US Environmental Protection Agency, under new direction, announced it would revisit Biden-era air quality rules governing soot emissions – a move that environmental advocates fear could weaken protections.

The agency called it part of the "biggest deregulatory action in US history," amid Trump administration efforts to scale back environmental monitoring, defund environmental science, and cancel longstanding clean air regulations.

With regulatory rollbacks looming, experts warn that clean air – and the health of millions – may be in jeopardy.