Posted by
Deborah Shprentz
|
Cessation of smoking has a beneficial effect on lung function, but the effect of reductions in air pollution on lung function has not been studied in adults until recently. It is normal for lung function to decline with age. A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine is the first to explore whether a decline in air pollution over time can attenuate this decline.
Posted by
Frank O'Donnell
| June 18, 2008
The summer hasn't officially begun yet, but we are already seeing ozone levels worse than the EPA's new standard.
Posted by
Ron White
| June 3, 2008
"'In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes."
Benjamin Franklin, 1789
Over the past several years, scientists and policy makers have increasingly debated the issue of uncertainty in the scientific base of information that underlies public health policy decisions. What do we mean by “uncertainty”? One way to think of scientific uncertainty is the lack of precise knowledge of the “scientific truth.” Despite our best efforts, we can only reduce but never completely eliminate uncertainty through obtaining more information. In fact, you can think of the scientific method itself as an approach to obtaining more information that (hopefully) reduces uncertainty and improves our understanding of the “scientific truth”.
Posted by
Deborah Shprentz
| May 23, 2008
I often get inquiries from citizen groups that are looking for presentations on the health effects of air pollution.
Posted by
Frank O'Donnell
| May 18, 2008
The ancient Greek poet and scholar Callimachus once was heard to quip "A big book is a big nuisance." The American Lung Association's recent "State of the Air" report is indeed big -- but it is anything but a nuisance
Posted by
Deborah Shprentz
| May 15, 2008
Last week I attended a Senate oversight hearing on the undermining of science at the Environmental Protection Agency. A subcommittee of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee was investigating the Agency’s failure to follow the recommendations of its own Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee when revising the air quality standards for soot and smog.
Posted by
Deborah Shprentz
| May 13, 2008
I run a project for the American Lung Association tracking the EPA review of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards. These standards define what constitutes “clean air” in America.
Posted by
Janice Nolen
| May 6, 2008
Thanks for writing in to our State of the Air website. As has happened every year, we’ve managed to make some people very unhappy about how we characterized the air in their community (we hear you, Pittsburgh!) and left others wondering about our data—or lack of data—in their community. I’ll try to answer some of the early ones and respond to the Pittsburgh questions tomorrow.
Posted by
Janice Nolen
| May 2, 2008
First, we would like to thank you for visiting the site. State of the Air has had great coverage around the nation. We’ve had a wonderful opportunity to talk about the critical impact air quality has on lung health and to let people know when and how they can protect themselves. This would not have been possible without the hard work of field staff and volunteers all across the nation. Even more directly, this required the hard, dedicated work of a team of our national headquarters colleagues in New York City and here in DC.
Posted by
Janice Nolen
| May 1, 2008
Welcome to our new State of the Air blog! We’re excited to open this new forum for talking about all things relating to outdoor air pollution. We have signed up 8 regular, rotating bloggers who come from all across the country with different backgrounds to help us keep a good discussion going. We look forward to hearing from you to learn from your perspectives and to share ours with you.
Posted by
Jenny Lee
| April 30, 2008
I'm excited about tomorrow's launch of the State of the Air: 2008. When I found out that this year's report card reveals that that one in 10 people in the U.S. live in areas with unhealthy levels of all three types of pollution: ozone, short-term and year-round particle pollution, I immediately went online to check the levels in my own state to see how this affected me and my family.
State of the Air: 2008 
