American Lung Association's 2025 "State of the Air" report

Photo provided by American Lung Association
Photo provided by American Lung Association

American Lung Association's 2025 "State of the Air" report

According to the American Lung Association's 2025 "State of the Air" report, released today, nearly half of the U.S. population breathes unhealthy levels of air pollution. The report finds that 156 million people in the U.S. (46%) live in areas that received an "F" grade for either ozone or particle pollution, a significant increase of 25 million from last year's report.

 Extreme heat and wildfires have contributed to worse air quality for millions nationwide. Although people of color make up 41.2% of the overall U.S. population, they are 51.2% of those living in counties with at least one failing grade for air quality. Black communities remain disproportionately affected by unhealthy air, being one and a half times more likely to live in areas with failing grades for all three measures of air pollution.


The Lung Association's 26th annual "State of the Air" report grades exposure to unhealthy levels of ground-level ozone air pollution (smog) and year-round and short-term spikes in particle pollution (soot) over three years. The report looks at the latest quality-assured air quality data from 2021 to 2023.


"Families across the U.S. are dealing with the health impacts of air pollution every day, and extreme heat and wildfires are making it worse. Air pollution is causing kids to have asthma attacks, making people who work outdoors sick, and leading to low birth weight in babies. This year's report shows the dramatic impact that air pollution has on a growing number of people," said Harold Wimmer, President and CEO of the American Lung Association. "Even as more people are breathing unhealthy air, the federal staff, programs and policies that are supposed to be cleaning up pollution are facing rollbacks, restructuring and funding challenges. For decades, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has worked to ensure people have clean air to breathe, from providing trustworthy air quality forecasts to making sure polluters who violate the law clean up. Efforts to slash staff, funding and programs at the EPA are leaving families even more vulnerable to harmful air pollution. We need to protect the EPA."


The "State of the Air" report found that 42.5 million people live in areas with failing grades for all three pollution measures. The report also found that a person of color in the U.S. is more than twice as likely as a white individual to live in a community with failing grades on all three pollution measures. Black individuals are 1.5 times more likely than white individuals to live in such communities, while Hispanic individuals are nearly three times as likely. These disparities in air pollution exposure among different racial groups underscore the necessity for equitable environmental policies and actions to address these issues.


Air pollutants addressed in this report are widespread and can impact anyone's health. Communities of color are disproportionately exposed to unhealthy air, and individuals of color are also more likely to have one or more chronic conditions that heighten their vulnerability to air pollution's health effects.


"Black Americans more frequently live with one or more chronic conditions, such as asthma, heart disease or diabetes, which puts us at even greater risk for the health effects of unhealthy air," said Dr. Cedric "Jamie" Rutland, a triple board certified in Internal Medicine, Pulmonary and Critical Care, and a national spokesperson for the American Lung Association. "Both ozone and particle pollution can lead to premature death and other serious health issues, such as asthma attacks, heart attacks, strokes, preterm births and impaired cognitive functioning later in life. Particle pollution can also lead to lung cancer.”


The number and severity of unhealthy spikes in particle pollution improved slightly in the western states but worsened in the Midwest and Northeast. During the three years covered by this report, individuals in the U.S. experienced the highest number of days when particle pollution reached “unhealthy” (red days) and “very unhealthy” (purple days) levels in the 26 years of reporting the “State of the Air.” This year’s report includes data from the summer of 2023, during which smoke from wildfires in Canada significantly impacted midwestern and eastern states, resulting in worse particle pollution.


This year's report reveals that 85 million people lived in a county that received a failing grade based on the nation's standard for year-round particle pollution levels. This represents the second-largest number in the report's history—just behind the 90.7 million posted in last year's report. Among the top 10 cities with poor air quality are Los Angeles Beach, CA (#5), Detroit-Warren-Ann Arbor, MI (tied for #6), Houston-Pasadena, TX (#8) and Cleveland-Akron-Canton, OH (#9).


Ground-level ozone pollution, or smog, is a powerful respiratory irritant. Inhaling ozone can cause shortness of breath, trigger coughing and asthma attacks and may shorten lifespan. Warmer temperatures driven by climate change make ozone more likely to form and harder to clean up.


After years of progress in cleaning up ozone, some communities are seeing the worst ozone levels in years. Extreme heat and wildfires contributed to the increase in ozone levels in many parts of the country, most notably in central states from Minnesota to Texas. Los Angeles-Long Beach, CA, was the top 10 city most polluted by ozone pollution.


In this year’s “State of the Air” report, the Lung Association is calling on everyone to support and defend the EPA, which is essential to protecting people’s health from ozone and particle pollution. Without the EPA staff and programs, families won’t know what’s in the air they are breathing, and efforts to clean up air pollution will be undone. Join the American Lung Association in advocating to protect EPA’s expert staff and lifesaving programs. See the full report results and take action at Lung.org/sota.

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