Indianapolis metro among worst in air quality, American Lung Association report shows

Nearly half of all Americans live with dangerous levels of air pollution, according to a new report from the American Lung Association.

The latest annual State of the Air report, which looked at the period between 2021 and 2023, found that the number of people living in an area that received a failing grade on at least one measure of air pollution rose by about 25 million nationwide.

The report looked at three measures: short-term particle pollution, long-term particle pollution and the number of high ozone days, which happen due to pollutants from sources like cars and factories.

Particle and ozone pollution have been linked to a number of negative health impacts, including mild respiratory conditions like coughing and wheezing to more acute problems, including the development of asthma, decreased lung function, growth in children and premature death for people with chronic lung disease.

Tiffany Nichols, the director of advocacy for the American Lung Association, said higher average temperatures due to climate change and the 2023 wildfires in Canada contributed to worsening air quality.

She said the findings should worry Americans, especially as the Trump Administration looks to roll back the regulatory power of the Environmental Protection Agency.

"If they remove those protections that the EPA has been doing for us for 50 years under the Clean Air Act, that we've been accustomed to for the last 50 years," she said, "you may go back and look at some old pictures from the 70s, some pictures of the air. I definitely would not want to live when the air is like that again."

The report found that more people were exposed to unhealthy air than in any previous report compiled from the last 10 years.

States were divided into individual counties, which received a letter grade, or by metro areas, which were ranked based on the three air quality measures.

The Indianapolis metro area, which includes Carmel and Muncie, ranked 11th worst in the country for annual particle pollution out of 208 metro areas. The Chicago and St. Louis metro areas ranked 13th and 17th respectively on that same metric and Cleveland ranked as the 9th worst nationwide.

Louisville and Kansas City metro areas ranked 32nd and 39th respectively on annual particle pollution.

Other metros fared better. The Des Moines metro was ranked 110th for annual particle pollution and Omaha ranked 89th.

According to the report, air pollution disproportionately affects communities of color, who are more than twice as likely to live in a county with at least one failing air quality grade compared with white people. Hispanic communities were nearly three times as likely as white individuals to live in a community with three failing grades.

Nichols said that the elderly, young, and those with underlying respiratory problems will be most impacted by worsening air pollution. She said in order to stay safe, people should monitor air quality through applications and take precautions on days of poorer quality.

"If we continue to see this uptick in unhealthy air days, utilize some of those tactics, such as staying indoors as much as you can, keeping your windows closed, using air purifiers," she said. "If you do have to venture outdoors, wear an N95 mask to protect yourself if you have a lung ailment."

Contact WFYI and Side Effects Public Media's Health Reporter Benjamin Thorp at bthorp@wfyi.org.

Side Effects Public Media is a health reporting collaboration based at WFYI in Indianapolis. We partner with NPR stations across the Midwest and surrounding areas — including KBIA and KCUR in Missouri, Iowa Public Radio, Ideastream in Ohio and WFPL in Kentucky.