In the News
August 29, 2023
Sustained exposure to wildfire smoke is taking a toll on human health in California, where residents of one county are losing an average of two years off their lives due to the air they breathe, a new report has found.
Twenty of the nation’s top 30 most polluted counties in 2021 were located in California, according to new data released by the Air Quality Life Index (AQLI) of the University of Chicago’s Energy Policy Institute.
In the most polluted county, Plumas, the AQLI estimated that residents would gain 2.1 years of life expectancy if the region adhered to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) particulate pollution guidelines.
Across the United States as a whole, residents are exposed to 64.9 percent less particulate pollution than they encountered in 1970, prior to the passage of the Clean Air Act, according to the AQLI.
They are also living 1.4 years longer because of this improvement in overall air quality.
Residents of Ohio’s Jefferson County, which achieved an 87.4 percent reduction in pollution since 1970, gained 5.9 years on average, while Kentucky’s Campbell County saw average life expectancies extended by 4.8 years.
Even in California, not everything has been bad news. Particulate pollution has declined in the “former smog capital of Los Angeles” by 57 percent since 1970, extending life expectancy for the average Angeleno by 1.5 years, the AQLI determined.
Nonetheless, the report authors warned that 96 percent of the country still fails to meet the WHO’s fine particulate pollution (PM 2.5) guidelines of 5 micrograms per cubic meter.