Detroit has worst soot pollution in Midwest, American Lung Association report finds
The city of Detroit is the sixth-worst location in the country for year-round particle pollution — soot, the nonprofit American Lung Association's 2025 "State of the Air" report finds.
Detroit also received failing grades for its number of unhealthy days per year of ground-level ozone, or smog, in the Lung Association study, which looked at air quality monitoring data collected by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and other state, local and tribal groups.
Both ozone and particle pollution can cause premature death and other serious health effects such as asthma attacks, heart attacks, strokes, preterm babies, impaired cognitive function later in life, and lung cancer, said Kezia Ofosu Atta, advocacy director for the Lung Association of Michigan.
"Unfortunately, too many people in Detroit are living with unhealthy levels of ozone and particle pollution," she said. "This air pollution is causing kids to have asthma attacks, making people who work outdoors sick and unable to work, and leading to low birth weight in babies. We urge Michigan policymakers to take action to improve our air."
More: Trump budget document points to ending federal role in Great Lakes science by next year
More: 'We were not prepared': Canada fought nightmarish wildfires as smoke became US problem
The 2025 "State of the Air" report reviewed quality-assured data from between 2021-2023. Many areas of the eastern United States saw a rise in particle pollution issues with Canada's record-shattering wildfire season in 2023, the smoke hanging over Michigan, New York and other states for days and weeks at a time.
By the Lung Association's analysis of EPA and other air quality data, Detroit experienced 6.2 days per year of unhealthy levels of ground-level ozone pollution, or smog. That's up from 5.7 days per year in the 2024 report.
The number of unhealthy days per year for particle pollution in the Detroit metro area was 8.5 days, soaring above the 4.8 days in the 2024 report, with Canadian wildfires smoke a major contributor.
Nationwide, the report found that 156 million people in the United States, some 46%, live in an area that received a failing grade for at least one measure of air pollution. Some 42.5 million people, including metro Detroiters, live in areas with failing grades for all three of the study's measures.
The report also found that a person of color in the United States is more than twice as likely as a white individual to live in a community with a failing grade on all three pollution measures. Hispanic individuals are nearly three times as likely than white individuals to live in a community with three failing grades.
The top five metro areas for year-round particulate pollution, in order, are Bakersfield, Visalia and Fresno, California; Eugene, Oregon; and Los Angeles-Long Beach.
The report notes that dramatic improvements to air quality occurred after the enactment of the federal Clean Air Act in 1970, even as the U.S. economy grew.
"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," the report states. "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."
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin in March announced plans for "the biggest deregulation in U.S. history," scaling back or eliminating numerous air pollution standards for oil and gas development and industry.
"Under the Clean Air Act, the U .S . Environmental Protection Agency has driven decades of progress in cleaning up the transportation, electricity, buildings and industrial sectors," the Lung Association's report states.
"At the same time, EPA has tracked, analyzed and expanded the nation's understanding of air pollution at the community level. Now, however, all of that progress is at risk. Sweeping staff cuts and reduction of federal funding are stymieing the agency's ability to ensure that people have clean air to breathe. This year's 'State of the Air' focuses onan overarching clarion call to people nationwide: support and defend EPA."
The "Fight for Air Climb" in Detroit, a fundraiser for the Lung Association and its mission, is scheduled for May 4. Participants will scale the stairs at Comerica Park. Learn more at ClimbDetroit.org.
Contact Keith Matheny: kmatheny@freepress.com.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: American Lung Association report gives failing grades to Detroit's air
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
38 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Exercise improves colon cancer survival, Canadian researchers say
TORONTO — Canadian researchers say a new study shows regular exercise improves survival for colon cancer patients. The study, published Sunday in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that patients who participated in a supervised exercise program after completing their chemotherapy were 28 per cent less likely to have their colon cancer return than patients in the control group. "It's the first clinical trial in the world asking whether exercise can improve cancer survival. And in fact, the results were astounding," Dr. Christopher Booth, a co-chair of the international study and a medical oncologist at Kingston Health Sciences Centre in Kingston, Ont., said in an interview. The patients in the exercise group regularly met with a physical activity consultant — usually a physiotherapist, kinesiologist or personal trainer — to help them stick to a structured exercise program for three years. The patients in the control group received health education materials that encouraged physical fitness after their chemotherapy, but were not given a physical activity support person. The patients in the structured exercise group had a 37 per cent lower risk of death than those in the control group, the study said. The study, which was conducted in cancer centres across Canada and in other countries including Australia and the U.K., shows a prescription for a structured exercise program should be part of the treatment for colon cancer, said Booth, who is also a professor of oncology at Queen's University. "If we had a cancer drug with this amount of benefit, it would cost between $100,000 and $200,000 per year (and) it would be celebrated in all the major guidelines across oncology societies worldwide," he said. "And there's no question it would be funded by health systems worldwide and included as a standard of care." Although the research team hasn't yet done a formal cost-benefit analysis, Booth said the cost of providing a physical activity support person for three years would likely be between $3,000 and $5,000 per patient. That would be a worthwhile investment for the health-care system to make, he said. "When we have something like exercise, which is both incredibly affordable and sustainable for health systems with comparable magnitude of benefit, I think it would be a tragic failure of health policy not to ensure this is provided to all patients." Booth and his colleagues started the randomized control trial, a model widely considered the gold standard in medical research, more than 15 years ago after seeing promising data in observational studies suggesting exercise would benefit colon cancer patients. The trial included 889 colon cancer patients, followed between 2009 and 2024, who had completed their chemotherapy treatments. The researchers assessed their baseline level of fitness and randomized them to assign half the participants to the structured exercise group and the other half to the control group. Those in the exercise group saw a physical activity consultant every two weeks for their first year in the study and then once a month for two years afterward. During those sessions, they would work on motivation and goal-setting to reach their targeted hours of exercise per week. The second part of the session was a supervised exercise session. Their goal was to increase their exercise level by at least 10 metabolic equivalents, or METS, per week. A MET is a unit of energy expended. Participants could choose what exercises they wanted to do as long as they met their MET target. Many chose brisk walking, which adds up to about four METS an hour. One of those participants was Terri Swain-Collins, who lives in Kingston and is one of Booth's patients. Now 62, Swain-Collins was diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer in June 2021 after a screening test and follow-up colonoscopy. When Booth asked if she would be interested in participating in the study, she didn't know whether she would be in the structured exercise group or the control group. Swain-Collins was assigned to the exercise group. At the time, she was returning to work as a busy X-ray technologist after her treatment, plus helping to manage her husband's business, and wasn't sure where she'd find the time for exercise. Thanks to the physiotherapist assigned to her, she was motivated to walk for at least 45 minutes, three times a week. "Being accountable to her is what really helped me continue with it," Swain-Collins said in an interview. "If I'd have been just told, you know, 'exercise is good for you and off you go,' I never would have done what I'm doing now," she said. There's no sign of her cancer returning and Swain-Collins said she's "definitely" more fit now. "I hope anyone diagnosed with cancer does get this type of opportunity," she said. "I think it might really make a difference." This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 1, 2025. Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content. Nicole Ireland, The Canadian Press
Axios
an hour ago
- Axios
Exclusive: HHS watchdog finds more than $16B in health savings
The Department of Health and Human Services' watchdog identified more than $16 billion in overpayments, fraudulent billings and possible cost savings in health programs over a half year spanning the Biden and Trump administrations, including more than $3.5 billion to be returned to the government. Why it matters: The semiannual summary, first shared publicly to Axios, comes as the Trump administration says it's prioritizing government efficiency and rooting out waste, fraud and abuse. It reflects growing concern over federal payments to Medicare Advantage plans, along with enforcement actions like McKinsey agreeing to pay $650 million to settle charges that its advice caused Purdue Pharma to submit fraudulent claims stemming from the opioid crisis. The report was sent to Congress late Friday. By the numbers: The HHS Office of Inspector General identified $16.6 billion in real and potential savings from October 2024 through March of this year. The office's investigations identified $3.5 billion in funds due back to the federal government, and its audits found another $451 million that the government will recoup. More than $12 billion in potential cost savings were identified if HHS makes recommended policy changes. The office issued 165 recommendations over the six months. In one example, OIG found that Medicare could have saved $7.7 billion if it lowered payments for swing beds at critical access hospitals so that they match skilled nursing facilities. The change would require action from Congress, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said it didn't agree with the recommendation. Nearly 400 civil actions, including settlements, resulted from OIG's work during the period. OIG says its work returned $11 to the federal government for each $1 invested in its office. "Whether it's us, whether it's [the Government Accountability Office], whether it's DOGE, whether it's state auditors, there's always a need for program integrity and oversight," said John Hagg, assistant inspector general in the IG's office of audit services. Zoom in: OIG over the six months covered in the report continued its investigations that raise concerns over improper payments in Medicare Advantage. OIG found that many patient diagnoses reported by privately run Medicare plans were supported only through health risk assessments. That allowed plans to be paid more to care for sicker, more expensive patients without enough supporting documentation, raising questions about their validity, per OIG. OIG recommended that Medicare further restrict plans' abilities to get higher payments based on diagnoses reported only on in-home health risk assessments in order to save an estimated $4.2 billion for Medicare. The office plans to do more work on Medicare Advantage in the near future, Melicia Seay, assistant inspector general in the office of evaluation and inspection, told Axios. "There's a lot of areas in terms of Medicare Advantage that we're exploring, whether it is the payment policy related to the program, the service delivery, quality of care," she said. Catch up quick: President Trump in January abruptly fired several agency inspectors general, including longtime HHS watchdog Christi Grimm. He claimed that"some were not doing their job."
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
NY Times columnist compares Elon Musk to history's worst murderers over USAID cuts
New York Times columnist David Brooks suggested Elon Musk belongs on a list of history's greatest mass murderers, including Pol Pot, Mao and Stalin due to DOGE'S cuts to USAID. "So far, 55,000 adults have died of AIDS in the four months since Trump was elected; 6,000 children are dead because of what Doge did. That's just PEPFAR, the HIV. You add them all up, that's 300,000 dead, and we're four months in. You add that all up and accumulate that over four years the number of dead grows very high," Brooks said on PBS News Hour Saturday. "There are mass murderers in the world, Pol Pot, Mao Tse Tung, Stalin. We don't have anybody on the list from America," Brooks added. Trump 'Agreed' On Shutting Down Usaid, Elon Musk Says The New York Times columnist conceded the so-called deaths that he claims Musk is responsible for are not "the same kind of genocide" perpetrated by the despots he cited, but maintained that Musk's closure of USAID made him partially responsible for mass deaths. The casualty counts Brooks cited were provided by a Boston University digital tracker that monitors deaths that it claims occur from changes in U.S. foreign aid created by Global Health Professor Brooke Nichols. When filtered for USAID cuts, the tracker states that 99,528 adults and 207,680 children have died this year from "funding discontinuation." Read On The Fox News App The communist regime Khmer Rouge killed between 1.5-3 million people between 1975 and 1979 in the Cambodian Genocide when the group plunged the country into mass violence targeting intellectuals and religious minorities following their overthrow of the Cambodian Monarchy and installation of Pol Pot as dictator in 1975. Thirty-eight million people died of starvation during Mao's Great Leap Forward and the ensuing famine it produced. Mao biographers Jung Chang and Jon Halliday estimate that Mao was responsible for over 70 million peacetime deaths. Stalin killed over six million of his own citizens in the gulags, the Great Terror and other actions. Click Here For More Coverage Of Media And Culture Brooks is purpotedly one of the few conservative voices at the New York Times. However, the columnist has espoused liberal views on a host of topics and has praised Biden's presidency. He has also positioned himself as a fierce critic of President Donald Trump. "Trumpism can be seen as a giant attempt to amputate the highest aspirations of the human spirit and to reduce us to our most primitive, atavistic tendencies," Brooks wrote in a recent column. USAID was set up in the early 1960s to act on behalf of the U.S. to deliver aid across the globe, particularly in impoverished and underdeveloped regions. The agency now operates in 60 nations and employs some 10,000 people, two-thirds of whom work overseas — though most of the on-the-ground work is contracted out to third-party organizations funded by USAID, according to a BBC report. The Trump administration, however, has argued that USAID is a corrupt organization that is mishandling U.S. taxpayer dollars. DOGE froze USAID funds and sent much of its staff home shortly after Trump took office. Musk, who was spearheading the DOGE effort to root out "waste, fraud and abuse" in government, has said the agency is beyond repair. The Trump administration announced that it would be cutting 90% of all USAID contracts in April. U2 frontman Bono recently made a similar claim as Brooks on Joe Rogan's podcast, saying 300,000 people have died due to USAID cuts. Musk swiftly shot back on social media, calling the Irish rocker a "liar/idiot" and claiming that there have not been any deaths from USAID cuts. "He's such a liar/idiot Zero people have died!" The Tesla CEO posted. Musk and Brooks did not respond to Fox News Digital's request to comment. Michael Dorgan contributed to this report. Original article source: NY Times columnist compares Elon Musk to history's worst murderers over USAID cuts
