Air quality in the United States is worsening. More Americans experienced more days with very unhealthy or hazardous air quality than any other time over the past 25 years, according to the American Lung Association’s annual State of the Air Report released Wednesday.

What You Need To Know

  • More Americans are experiencing more days with very unhealthy or hazardous air quality, according to the American Lung Association

  • About 130 million Americans are exposed to unhealthy levels of smog or soot

  • Bakersfield, Calif., topped the list of cities with the highest levels of particle pollution

  • Bangor, Maine, has the cleanest air

“We have seen impressive progress in clearing up air pollution over the last 25 years, thanks in large part to the Clean Air Act,” ALA President Harold Wimmer said in a statement. “However, when we started this report, our team never imagined that 25 years in the future, more than 130 million people would still be breathing unhealthy air.”

Wimmer said climate change is causing more dangerous air pollution. More frequent wildfires  increase particle pollution to dangerous levels, while warmer temperatures make ozone more likely to form and more difficult to clean up.

Based on data from 2020 through 2022, this year’s report found that 39% of people in the U.S. are living in areas with unhealthy levels of ground-level ozone (or smog), as well as short- and long-term levels of particle pollution (also known as soot).

About 40% of the population lives in an area that failed at least one of the air pollution measures. Nearly 44 million people lived in areas that failed in all three measures.

People of color are most likely to be living with at least one chronic condition that makes them vulnerable to air pollution, such as asthma, diabetes or heart disease. The ALA report found that people of color are 2.3 times more likely than white individuals to live in communities that received failing grades in all three of the association’s air pollution measures.

Bakersfield, Calif., topped the list of cities with the highest levels of short-term particle pollution, or soot. Fresno, Calif.; Fairbanks, Alaska; Eugene-Springfield, Ore.; and Visalia, Calif., rounded out the top five.

Bakersfield, Calif., also topped the list of cities with the highest levels of year-round particle pollution, followed by Visalia, Calif.; Fresno, Calif.; Eugene-Springfield, Ore.; and San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland.

Los Angeles has the highest levels of ground-level ozone pollution.

Bangor, Maine topped the list of cleanest cities for all three measures of air pollution, followed by the Tri-Cities region of Johnson City, Kingsport and Bristol in Tennessee and Virginia; Lincoln-Beatrice, Neb.; Honolulu; and Wilmington, N.C.