PHOTO | TORY HULL

Charlotte’s historically Black communities, like the Beatties Ford Road corridor, are at highest risk of poor air quality and resulting health issues like respiratory illness, heart disease and stroke. Mecklenburg County was the only one in North Carolina to score an “F” grade on the American Lung Association’s “State of the Air” report.

Mecklenburg County still has North Carolina’s dirtiest air according to a report published by the American Lung Association.

Mecklenburg was the only county to score “F” on the 2022 “State of the Air” report, with 15 high ozone days – the most in North Carolina – and a “B” grade on particle pollution over the study’s three-year span. Wake County, the state’s most populous with 1,132,000 people, scored an “A” and had zero high ozone days.

Mecklenburg has a population of 1,128,000.

The air quality report card tracks and grades Americans’ exposure to unhealthy short-term spikes in particle pollution, or soot, annual particle pollution and ground-level ozone air pollution, or smog over three years.

The national study found that despite progress in some parts of the country, a growing number of Americans live in areas with poor air quality that could impact their health. Nearly 9 million more Americans are affected by particle pollution than last year’s report and air pollution’s burden usually falls upon communities of color.

“This year’s State of the Air report shows an alarming number of people are living in areas with poor air quality that could impact their health,” said Cedric Rutland M.D., national volunteer medical spokesperson for the American Lung Association. “As a pulmonologist living in Southern California, I see first-hand the impacts of air pollution, and specifically particle pollution from wildfires, on my patients. … The report found that people of color were 61% more likely than white people to live in a county with a failing grade for at least one pollutant, and 3.6 times as likely to live in a county with a failing grade for all three pollutants, which means more asthma that can be life threatening in children and adults.”

Mecklenburg’s population includes 613,000 people of color, which means the risk of health issues related to air pollution is greater than for their white peers.

Data used in the report included air quality during the COVID-19 pandemic. Even with the nation mostly shut for most of the year, there was no obvious improvement. In fact, there were more days with “very unhealthy” and “hazardous” air quality than ever before in the report’s history.

For the first time, the report lists pregnant people as an at-risk population for health impacts from air pollution. More than 1.5 million pregnancies were recorded in 2020 in counties that received at least one “F” grade for particle pollution.

Of those, 210,000 were in counties that received failing grades for all three measures. Adverse impacts from air pollution have been shown both for those who are pregnant as well as for the developing fetus.

Exposure to both ozone and particle pollution during pregnancy is strongly associated with premature birth, low birth weight and stillbirth. The risks increase in pregnancies where the mother is a person of color or suffers from chronic conditions, especially asthma.

The report found long-term improvement in air quality overall due to decades of emissions reduction partially offset by hotter, drier conditions caused by climate change.

Wildfires in the western U.S. were responsible for a sharp rise in particle pollution spikes in several states. Overall, the report finds that 2.1 million more Americans live in counties with unhealthy air than last year’s report, and exposure to particle pollution increased.

People of color are more likely to be living with one or more chronic conditions that make them more vulnerable to the health impact of air pollution, including asthma, diabetes and heart disease.

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