Health Effects of Ozone Pollution
Ozone air pollution, sometimes known as smog, is the one of the most widespread pollutants in the United States. It is also one of the most dangerous. Scientists have studied the effects of ozone on human health for decades. Hundreds of studies have confirmed that ozone harms people at levels currently found in many parts of the United States.
Health Effects of Particle Pollution
Particle pollution – also known as particulate matter – is a deadly and growing threat to public health in communities around the country. The more researchers learn about the health effects of particle pollution, the more dangerous it is recognized to be.
People at Risk
The health burden of air pollution is not evenly shared. There are people more at risk of illness and death from air pollution than others. Several key factors affect an individual’s level of risk:
- Exposure – Where someone lives, where they go to school and where they work makes a big difference in how much air pollution they breathe. In general, the higher the exposure, the greater the risk of harm.
- Vulnerability – Children, older adults and people living with chronic conditions, especially heart and lung disease, may be physically more susceptible to the health impacts of air pollution than healthy adults.
- Access to healthcare – Whether or not a person has health coverage, a healthcare provider, and access to linguistically and culturally appropriate health information may influence their overall health status, and how they are impacted by environmental stressors like air pollution.
- Psychosocial stress – There is increasing evidence that non-physical stressors such as poverty, racial/ethnic discrimination, fear of deportation can amplify the harmful effects of air pollution.
These risk factors are not mutually exclusive and often interact in ways that lead to significant health inequities among subgroups of the population.
Emerging Threats
Since the passage of the Clean Air Act in 1970, the federal, state and local governments, businesses, community leaders and advocates have invested years of effort into reducing the public health threat from air pollution. By many measures, those efforts have paid off, and the air we breathe is dramatically cleaner than it was 50 years ago. “State of the Air” has documented this long-term improvement over the past twenty-two years. In recent years, however, new threats have emerged that are causing air pollution levels to rise and the potential harm to vulnerable populations to increase.
Did You Know?
- Nearly 5 out of 10 people live where the air they breathe earned an F in State of the Air 2020.
- 150 million people live in counties that received an F for either ozone or particle pollution in State of the Air 2020.
- More than 20.8 million people live in counties that got an F for all three air pollution measures in State of the Air 2020.
- Breathing ozone irritates the lungs, resulting in something like a bad sunburn within the lungs.
- Breathing in particle pollution can increase the risk of lung cancer, according to the World Health Organization.
- Particle pollution can also cause early death and heart attacks, strokes and emergency room visits for people with asthma and cardiovascular disease.
- Particles are smaller than 1/30th the diameter of a human hair. When you inhale them, they are small enough to get past the body's natural defenses.
- Ozone and particle pollution are both linked to increased risk of lower birth weight in newborns.
- Do you live near, or work on or near a busy highway? Pollution from the traffic may put you at greater risk of harm.
- People who work or exercise outside face increased risk from the effects of air pollution.
- Millions of people are especially vulnerable to the effects of air pollution, including infants, older adults and people with lung diseases like asthma.
- People of color and those earning lower incomes are often disproportionately affected by air pollution that put them at higher risk for illnesses.
- Air pollution is a serious health threat. It can trigger asthma attacks, harm lung development in children, and can even be deadly.
- You can protect your family by checking the air quality forecasts in your community and avoiding exercising or working outdoors when the unhealthy air is expected.
- Climate change enhances conditions for ozone to form and makes it harder to keep ozone from forming.
- Climate change increases the risk of wildfires that spread particle pollution and ozone in the smoke.
- This Administration is trying to roll back or create loopholes in core healthy air protections under the Clean Air Act. The Lung Association opposes these actions that will add pollution to the air we breathe.
- Cutting air pollution through the Clean Air Act will prevent at least 230,000 deaths and save $2 trillion annually by 2020.
-
U.S.EPA. Integrated Science Assessment for Ozone and Related Photochemical Oxidants. April 2020. EPA/600/R-20/012. Section 3.1.4.1.
-
U.S. EPA. 2020, Sections 3.1.5 and 3.1.6.
-
U.S. EPA. 2020, Section 3.1.7.
-
U.S. EPA. 2020, Section 3.2.4.1.
-
U.S. EPA. 2020, Section 3.2.4.3.
-
U.S. EPA. 2020, Section 3.2.4.6.
-
U.S. EPA. 2020, Section 5.1.3.
-
U.S. EPA. 2020, Sections 7.2.1 and 7.2.2.
-
U.S. EPA. 2020, Section 7.1.3.
-
Mendola P, Ha S, Pollack AZ, Zhu Y, Seeni I, Kim SS, Sherman S, Liu D. Chronic and acute ozone exposure in the week prior to delivery is associated with risk of stillbirth. Int J Environ Res Pub Health. 2017; 14:731.
-
U.S. EPA. 2020, Sections 4.1 and 4.2
-
Di et al. 2017.
-
Lim CC, Hayes RB. Ahn J, Shao Y, Silverman DT, Jones RR, Garcia C, Bell ML, Thurston GD. Long-term exposure to ozone and cause-specific mortality risk in the United States. Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 2019; 200(8):1022–1031.
-
U.S. EPA. 2020, Section IS.4.4
-
Health Effects Institute. State of Global Air. Boston MA. 2020.
-
U.S.EPA. integrated Science Assessment for Particulate Matter. December 2019 EPA/600/R-19/188. Section 11.1.
-
Shi L, Zanobetti A, Kloog I, Coull BA, Koutrakis P, Melly SJ, Schwartz JD. Low-concentration PM2.5 and mortality: estimating acute and chronic effects in a population-based study. Environ Health Perspect. 2016; 124:46-52. http://dx.doi.org/10.1289/ehp.1409111.
-
Schwartz J, Bind MA, Koutrakis P. Estimating causal effects of local air pollution on daily deaths: Effect of low levels. Environ Health Perspect. 2017125:23-29. http://dx.doi.org/10.1289/EHP232.
-
Di Q, Dai L, Wang Y, Zanobetti A, Choirat C, Schwartz JD, Dominici F. Association of Short-Term Exposure to Air Pollution with Mortality in Older Adults. JAMA. 2017; 318:2446-2456.
-
U.S. EPA. 2019, Section 9.1.2.6.
-
U.S. EPA. 2019, Section 6.1.2.
-
U.S. EPA. 2019, Section 5.1.2.1.1.
-
U.S. EPA. 2019, Section 5.1.2.1.
-
U.S. EPA. 2019, Section 5.1.2.2.1.
-
U.S. EPA. 2019, Section 11.2.
-
Pope CA, Lefler JS, Ezzati M, Higbee JD, Marshall JD, Kim S, Bechle M, Gilliat KS, Vernon SE, Robinson AL, Burnett RT. Mortality risk and fine particulate pollution in a large, representative cohort of U.S. Adults. Environ Health Perspect. 2019; 127(7):077007-1-077007-9.
-
Bekkar B Pacheco S, Basu R, DeNicola N_Association of air pollution and heat exposure with preterm birth, low birth weight and stillbirth in the U.S.: A systemic review. JAMA Network Open. 2020; 3(6):e208243.
-
Bekkar B et al. 2020.
-
U.S. EPA. 2019, Section 5.2.2.2.1.
-
U.S. EPA. 2019, Section 5.2.3.1.
-
U.S. EPA. 2019, Section 6.2.2.
-
U.S. EPA. 2019, Section 5.2.5.
-
Bowe B, Xie Y, Li T, Yan Y, Xian H, Al-Aly Z. The 2016 global and national burden of diabetes mellitus attributable to PM2.5 air pollution. Lancet Planet Health. 2018; 2:e301-12.
-
U.S. EPA, 2019. Section 10.2.5.1.
-
Kilian J and Kitazawa M. The emerging risk of exposure to air pollution on cognitive decline and Alzheimer's disease -- evidence from epidemiological and animal studies. Biomed J. 2018; 41:141-162.
-
Shi L, Wu X, Danesh Yazdi M, Braun D, Abu Awad Y, Wei Y, Liu P, Di Q, Wand Y, Schwartz J, Dominici F, Kioumourtzoglou M-A, Zanobetti A. Long-term effects of PM2·5 on neurological disorders in the American Medicare population: a longitudinal cohort study. Lancet Planet Health. 2020; 4:e557-65.
-
U.S. EPA. 2019, Section 5.2.11.
-
Wu X, Nethery RC, Sabath MB, Braun, Dominici F. Air pollution and COVID-19 mortality in the United States: Strengths and limitations of an ecological regression analysis. Sci Adv. 2020; 6(4):eabd4049.
-
Pozzer A, Dominici F, Haines A, Witt C, Munzel T, Lelieveld J. Regional and global contributions of air pollution to risk of death from COVID-19. Cardio Res. 2020; 116:2247-2253.
-
Terrel KA and James W. Racial disparities in air pollution burden and COVID-19 deaths in Louisiana, USA, in the context of long-term changes in fine particulate pollution. Env Justice.2020. DOI: 10.1089/env.2020.0021.
-
U.S. EPA. 2019, Section 12.5.1.1.
-
U.S. EPA. 2019, Section 12.3.5.
-
U.S. EPA. 2019, Section 12.3.1.
-
U.S. EPA. 2019, Section 10.2.5.1.
-
U.S. EPA. 2019, Section 12.5.4.
-
U.S. EPA. 2019, Section 12.6.1.
-
U.S. EPA. 2019, Section 12.5.3.
-
U.S. EPA. 2019, Section 12.3.3.
-
U.S. EPA. 2019, Section 12.5.4
-
Di et al. 2017.
-
Nardone A, Casey JA, Morello-Frosch R, Mujahid M, Balmes JR, Thakur N. Associations Between Historical Residential Redlining and Current Age-Adjusted Rates of Emergency Department Visits Due to Asthma Across Eight Cities in California: An Ecological Study. Lancet Planet Health. 2020:4(1):e24-e31.
-
Erqou S, Clougherty JE, Olafiranye O, Magnani JW, Aiyer A, Tripathy S, Kinnee E, Kip KE, Reis SE. Particulate Matter Air Pollution and Racial Differences in Cardiovascular Disease Risk. Arterioscler Thromb Vasc Biol. 2018; 38:00-00.
-
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. National Center for Health Statistics. National Health Interview Survey, 2019. Analysis performed by the American Lung Association Epidemiology and Statistics Unit using SPSS software.
-
U.S. EPA. 2019, Section 12.5.3.
-
Mikati I, Benson AF, Luben TJ, Sacks JD, Richmond-Bryant J. Disparities in Distribution of Particulate Matter Emission Sources by Race and Poverty Status. Am J Public Health. 2018; 108(4):480–485.
-
Kioumourtzoglou M-A, Schwartz J, James P, Dominici F, Zanobetti A. PM2.5 and mortality in 207 US cities: modification by temperature and city characteristics. Epidemiology. 2016; 27(2):221-7.
-
Schwartz J. Air Pollution and Children’s Health. Pediatrics. 2004; 113(4):1037-1043.
-
Simoni M, Baldacci S, Maio S, Cerrai S, Sarno G, Viegi G. Adverse Effects of Outdoor Pollution in the Elderly. J Thorac Dis. 2015; 7(1):34-45.
-
U.S. EPA. 2019, Section 12.6.1.
-
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The Health Consequences of Smoking - 50 Years of Progress: A Report of the Surgeon General. 2014.
-
bi, K.L., J.M. Balbus, G. Luber, A. Bole, A. Crimmins, G. Glass, S. Saha, M.M. Shimamoto, J. Trtanj, and J.L. White-Newsome, 2018: Human Health. In Impacts, Risks, and Adaptation in the United States: Fourth National Climate Assessment, Volume II [Reidmiller, D.R., C.W. Avery, D.R. Easterling, K.E. Kunkel, K.L.M. Lewis, T.K. Maycock, and B.C. Stewart (eds.)]. U.S. Global Change Research Program, Washington, DC, USA, pp. 572–603.
-
Anderko, L et al. Climate changes reproductive and children’s health: a review of risks, exposures, and impacts. Pediatr Res. 2020; 87:414–419.
-
Watts N, Amann M, Arnell N et al. The 2020 report of The Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: responding to converging crises. Lancet 2020.
-
Witt C et al. The effects of climate change on patients with chronic lung disease—a systematic literature review. Dtsch Arztebl Int. 2015; 112:878–83.
-
Watts et al. Lancet. 2020.
-
Reid CE et al. Critical review of health impacts of wildfire smoke exposure. Env Health Perspect. 2016; 124(9):1334-1343.
-
Liu JC et al. Wildfire-specific fine particulate matter and risk of hospital admissions in urban and rural counties. Epidemiology. 2017; 28(1):77-85.
-
Abdo M et al. Impact of wildfire smoke on adverse pregnancy outcomes in Colorado, 2007-2015. Int J Environ Res Pub Health. 2019; 16:3720.
-
Cascio WE. Wildland fire smoke and human health. Sci Total Environ. 2018; 624: 586–595.
-
Del Rio C et al. Long-term Health Consequences of COVID-19. JAMA. 2020; 324(17):1723-1724.
-
Nalbandian A et al. Post-acute COVID-19 syndrome. Nat Med (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-021-01283-z