Katherine Pruitt of the American Lung Association joins AccuWeather to share this year's report in regards to how air quality and pollution levels affect people's respiratory health.
00:00The American Lung Association releases its annual State of the Air report today.
00:05Here with the findings and what it means for our health is the lead author of the report, Catherine Pruitt.
00:11Thank you so much for being with us.
00:13Thank you for having me. Good morning.
00:15Good morning. All right.
00:16So what are the key findings of this year's State of the Air and air quality across the country?
00:22Well, the findings of the American Lung Association's State of the Air report this year are not good.
00:28We found that more people in more parts of the country are breathing levels of ozone and particle pollution that are harmful to their health.
00:38And fewer people in fewer places are breathing the cleanest air.
00:43We found almost half the U.S. population, 156 million people living in places that got failing grades for ozone or particle pollution.
00:54That's 25 million more people than in last year's report.
00:59Well, let's talk about the health risks associated with that.
01:02What are they for both air ozone and particle pollution?
01:07Both ozone and particle pollution are dangerous to breathe.
01:12They are the two most widespread pollutants that are controlled by the Clean Air Act because of their potential for health harm.
01:22They're obviously both troublesome to the lungs that can cause and worsen lung disease, heart disease, heart disease and strokes.
01:35They affect other organs of the body and have been known to be linked to COPD, diabetes.
01:43And now we're even learning that these air pollutants are starting to affect our mental health and well-being, including onset of dementia and behavioral health problems in children.
01:56So really, system-wide, they're both problematic for our health.
02:01Let's talk more about weather and the role it plays in air quality.
02:07Well, air quality has always varied with the weather.
02:10As you can imagine, if there's a windy day, the air pollution that builds up in an area where there's a lot of traffic, for example, might dissipate, might blow away sooner.
02:22But in the last 10 years or so of doing state of the air, and we've been doing it for 26 years now, we have seen a trend toward worsening of air pollution because of the changing climate.
02:37Increasing heat and drought and wildfires are making particle pollution and ozone pollution worse.
02:45On a positive note, you mentioned that there are a lot of cities that failed.
02:52Let's talk about some of the cities that have the cleanest air across the United States.
02:58Well, I think one thing to keep in mind is that the State of the Air report only reports on the counties that have official air pollution monitors.
03:09And that's only about a third of the counties nationwide.
03:13So of that third of the counties, you know, we see that there are places that are cleanest for ozone, places that are cleanest for particle pollution, and a couple of places this year, only two that were cleanest for all three measures that we track in State of the Air.
03:32And those were Bangor, Maine and San Juan, Puerto Rico.
03:36But there are plenty of other places in the country that we know are clean.
03:41We might not necessarily have data on them because we don't have data, because we don't have monitors in all our counties.
03:49That's such an important point.
03:50I appreciate you clearing that up for us.
03:52All right, Catherine Pruitt with the American Lung Association.
03:54Thank you so much for joining us and sharing the report.
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