Introduction

Outdoor air pollution takes a tremendous toll on our nation’s health. Millions of people, of all ages and backgrounds, live in parts of the United States where polluted air makes breathing difficult, even dangerous. The American Lung Association is committed to reducing this threat. As a tool for gauging the progress (or lack of progress) in combating air pollution and its health impact, the American Lung Association annually assesses air quality in the United States through its annual American Lung Association State of the Air reports.

This latest analysis, the American Lung Association State of the Air 2006 examines the two most pervasive outdoor air pollutants: ozone and PM_2.5 or particle pollution.¹ While these are not the only troublesome outdoor air pollutants, they are the two most dangerous because of their toxicity and their prevalence.

This report grades only those counties with air quality monitors. Importantly, however, air pollution does not respect political boundaries and may be a public health hazard regardless of whether a community has a monitor in place. Air pollution can be blown by the wind or formed mid-air through complex chemical reactions that disperse the pollution far beyond its source. The monitors, however, provide an overall picture of the air quality in a larger region, a picture that helps shape efforts to curb the pollution. In addition to giving grades to individual counties that have air quality monitors, this report also describes the broader situation in each region of the country in the chapter entitled “National and Regional Analysis.”

Particle Pollution

Of the two airborne health hazards, particle pollution is the more deadly and remains a widespread problem, especially in large parts of the eastern United States and California. This report looks at particle pollution in several ways. Tables form the core of the report, with each state’s short-term and year-round particle grades, by county, if the county has a particle monitor. These data come from a network of monitors in more than 700 counties established in 1998 and 1999 following the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) adoption of a health standard to address fine particle pollution in 1997.

Particle pollution is evaluated by two measures: 1) short-term exposure due to occasional spikes in particle pollution from relatively infrequent events, although these spikes may last hours to days; and 2) year-round or chronic exposure from particles found routinely in the environment.

Analyses for this 2006 report shows a general decline in particle pollution from the Lung Association’s 2005 report, thanks in large part to implementation of programs to reduce pollution from coal-fired power plants.²

Ozone Pollution

Ozone continues to be the most pervasive air pollutant and remains a present danger despite decreases in this pollutant nationwide since 1980. During the 1990s, ozone concentrations remained remarkably and uncomfortably unchanged.³ EPA’s own records show this stagnation. However, EPA’s data are now showing a trend toward lower ozone readings, a trend also reflected by the analysis in this Lung Association report. The decline also comes in the face of a particularly hot summer in 2002 when many cities reported “Code Red” days, with air pollution levels reaching unhealthful levels for all populations. Cooler, wetter summers in 2003 and 2004 also contributed to this decline.⁴ But EPA itself looked at the changes and, even correcting for weather, documented a real improvement in ozone levels.⁵

According to the EPA, these declines are largely the result of controls put in place to clean up coal-fired power plants in the Eastern United States.⁶ If so, the real decline will likely persist in the future, as Georgia and Missouri power plants install this first round of control measures and new controls finally impact public health. Coming down the road are additional steps that will help reduce air pollution further, including cleaner diesel fuels, trucks and buses in 2006 and cleaner sport utility vehicles and heavy equipment vehicles in 2007.

Millions Remain At Risk, Despite Improvements in Air Quality

The reduction in emissions from coal-fired power plants provided clear evidence that air is cleaner in much of the nation, but wet weather and cool summers also influenced some of the significant drop in unhealthy days.⁷ Although the air is cleaner, tens of millions of people still live in counties where monitors show unhealthful levels of air pollution in the form of either ozone or short-term or yearround levels of particle pollution. While not every person is exposed to dangerous levels of air pollution each day, pollution occurs frequently enough in these counties to cause serious health problems.

• 8.5 million adults with asthma,
• 3.1 million children with asthma,
• 4.4 million people with chronic bronchitis,
• 1.7 million people with emphysema,
• 36 million children age 18 and under, and
• 16 million adults age 65 and over.

Introduction continued...