{"id":206575,"date":"2026-04-22T22:41:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T22:41:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/206575\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T22:41:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T22:41:08","slug":"nyc-area-has-the-dirtiest-air-in-the-u-s-east-of-texas-report-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/206575\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC area has the dirtiest air in the U.S. east of Texas, report says"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Tri-State Area has the dirtiest air in the United States<\/a> east of Texas, according to The American Lung Association’s newly released “State of the Air” report<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The New York City-Newark region<\/a> ranked 12th worst for ozone out of 226 metropolitan areas across the country.<\/p>\n

Ozone in NYC area<\/p>\n

According to the report, locally, we breathe less fine particle pollution or soot, but more ozone or smog.<\/p>\n

“The whole New York metro area is being exposed to failing levels of ozone,” said Michael Seilback, assistant vice president for nationwide advocacy with The American Lung Association.<\/p>\n

Ozone gets created when the sun reacts with pollution.<\/p>\n

“Fairfield County in Connecticut is actually the dirtiest county on the entire East Coast when it comes to ozone,” Seilback said.<\/p>\n

In New Jersey, the worst is Gloucester County, and in New York, it’s Suffolk County.<\/p>\n

“Air pollution doesn’t just settle where it’s created. It can travel, you know, literally hundreds of miles,” Seilback said.<\/p>\n

We lived that experience in June 2023, when smoke from Canadian wildfires delivered orange skies and the worst air quality in the world<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Poor air quality’s impact on kids<\/p>\n

The report also found more than 1.1 million children in New York state and more than 700,000 in New Jersey breathe unhealthy air.<\/p>\n

Dr. Charles Shieh, with Holy Name Medical Center, says on days with poor air quality, emergency room visits increase.<\/p>\n

“Pollution is a very powerful irritant on the lungs,” he said. “Some have likened that to a sunburn on the lungs … It can lead to other diseases, not just in the moment, like asthma attack, but other respiratory diseases down the road.”<\/p>\n

Shieh said children are at heightened risk, as their lungs are still developing. He suggests parents take note of air quality daily.<\/p>\n

“May need to adjust their schedules,” he said.<\/p>\n

The good news is the air we breathe is much cleaner than it was just two decades ago, before the Environmental Protection Agency reduced the sulfur content of gasoline.<\/p>\n

“We need to make sure that we continue on that track,” Seilback said.<\/p>\n

In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Tri-State Area has the dirtiest air in the United States east of Texas, according to The American…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":206576,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[4590,18534,9,24,55,54,7607,56],"class_list":{"0":"post-206575","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-air-quality","9":"tag-environmental-protection-agency","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-city","12":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","13":"tag-new-york-city-news","14":"tag-newark","15":"tag-ny"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206575\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/206576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}