State of the Air 2025

“The “State of the Air” 2025 report finds that even after decades of successful efforts to reduce sources of air pollution, 46% of Americans—156.1 million people—are living in places that get failing grades for unhealthy levels of ozone or particle pollution. This is nearly 25 million more people breathing unhealthy air compared to last year’s report, and more than in any other “State of the Air” report in the last ten years. Nearly half of the U.S. population lives with unhealthy levels of air pollution. Extreme heat, drought and wildfires are contributing to worsening levels of air pollution across much of the U.S., exposing a growing proportion of the population to ozone and particle pollution that put their health at risk. The “State of the Air” report looks at two of the most widespread and dangerous air pollutants, fine particles and ozone. The air quality data used in the report are collected at official monitoring sites across the United States by federal, state, local and Tribal governments. The Lung Association calculates values reflecting the air pollution problem and assigns grades for daily and long-term measures of particle pollution and daily measures of ozone. Those values are also used to rank cities (metropolitan areas) and counties. This year’s report presents data from 2021, 2022 and 2023, the most recent three years of quality-assured nationwide air pollution data publicly available. See About This Report for more detail about the methodology for data collection and analysis. “State of the Air” 2025 is the 26th edition of this annual report, which was first published in 2000. From the beginning, the findings in “State of the Air” have reflected the successes of the Clean Air Act, as emissions from transportation, power plants and manufacturing have been reduced over time. Over the last decade, however, the findings of the report have added to the extensive evidence that a changing climate is making it harder to protect this hard-fought progress on air quality and human health. Increases in high ozone days and spikes in particle pollution related to extreme heat, drought and wildfires are putting millions of people at risk and adding challenges to the work that states and cities are doing across the nation to clean up air pollution. State of the Air:

• Report Cards
• Key Findings
• Ozone Trends
• Short-Term Particle Pollution Trends
• Year-Round Particle Pollution Trends
• Populations at Risk
• Cleanest Places to Live
• Most Polluted Places to Live
• Health Impact of Air Pollution
• Recommendations for Action
• About this Report
• Air Quality Facts