50 U.S. Cities With the Dirtiest Air
By Tiffany Onyejiaka, Stacker News
On 3/14/21 at 8:00 AM EDT
Almost half of all Americans 45.8 percent, or 150 million people live in counties with unhealthy air quality, according to the American Lung Association s 2020 State of the Air report. Poor air quality, including unhealthy ozone or particle pollution, can lead to respiratory issues that are known to shorten lifespans, contribute to the risk of lower birth weight in newborns, and cause myriad tangential health problems.
Despite this knowledge, the number of people living amid unsafe air quality continues to grow; 2020 numbers are up from 134 million people reported in 2018. To learn more about where in the country the air is the dirtiest, Stacker analyzed the 2019 Air Quality Statistics Report from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), released in May 2020. From there, we compiled a list of the 50 cities with the dirtiest air.
Three-quarters of a century ago, the Pittsburgh areaâs air quality was such that the city was derisively referred to as âHell with the Lid Off.â For decades afterward, steel mills were rampant and so was pollution.
Most of those mills disappeared by the late 1980s and the regionâs skies have improved since. They may not be pristine, but according to findings from a recent analysis, they are much better.
Pittsburgh Works Together, a nonpartisan alliance of labor, industry and civic leaders, released its findings on Thursday in a report titled âClearing the Air.â The year-old group examined data, including small particulate matter and ozone, and concluded that air quality has improved across the Pittsburgh region over the past decade and âis typical for a big-city metropolitan area.â