New research from the  Milken Institute School of Public Heath suggests that policies aimed at improving air quality can reduce the global burden of asthma and respiratory health around the world.  This is the first study to quantify the global burden of asthma linked to dirty air!

 

The researchers found that 8 to 20 percent of global asthma ER visits may be triggered by ozone. Ozone is an air pollutant generated when car, power plant, and other types of emissions interact with sunlight. The United States has relatively clean air compared to other countries but air pollution still triggers asthma attacks in millions of people, up to 20 percent of ER visits having to do with asthma related to ozone

 

Other countries have it much worse. According to the researchers, "About half of the asthma emergency room visits attributed to dirty air were estimated to occur in South and East Asian countries, notably India and China." There is very little regulation in those countries on the pollution that factories cause. The really concerning part is that 95% of the worlds population lives in places with unsafe air.  It is extremely important that we target sources of ozone and nitrogen dioxide such as car and factory emissions in order to protect generations of people from having these negative health issues.