Wildfire smoke and rising temperatures continue to take an increasing toll on air quality in the United States, with almost half of the population exposed to unhealthy levels of at least one of two key pollutants, according to the American Lung Association’s latest annual survey.
As President Donald Trump’s administration methodically dismantles programs to promote environmental justice, the data also show that people of color remain much more likely than whites to live in communities with particularly dirty air.
Nationwide, about 156 million people lived in areas that received a failing grade for airborne concentrations of ground-level ozone and/or the fine particles often known as soot, the public health advocacy group found in the “State of the Air” report released Wednesday.
That total, based on EPA monitoring data for 2021 through 2023, was roughly 25 million higher than the comparable tally in last year’s survey.
