{"id":173480,"date":"2026-04-23T03:19:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T03:19:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/173480\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T03:19:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T03:19:07","slug":"philadelphia-regions-air-quality-grades-poorly-in-new-report-as-pollution-worsens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/173480\/","title":{"rendered":"Philadelphia region&#8217;s air quality grades poorly in new report as pollution worsens"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A new report from the <a href=\"http:\/\/Lung.org\/sota\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">American Lung Association<\/a> says millions of Americans are being exposed to potentially dangerous air, and that includes the Philadelphia region.<\/p>\n<p>The Philadelphia region graded an F for bad air quality in the annual report from the association. The report analyzes ozone, smog and particle pollution.<\/p>\n<p>Caroline Hutchinson, with the American Lung Association, says not only did the region get a failing grade, but the air pollution here is intensifying.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We also went from the 26th-worst city to the 17th-worst city in just a year,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p>The state of the air report says the pollution is coming from cars, power plants, chemicals and fires.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s work that needs to be done,&#8221; Hutchinson said.<\/p>\n<p>Doctors say the fine particles from air pollution can penetrate the lungs and bloodstream, triggering inflammation and a variety of health problems, including lung and heart disease.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I do think it&#8217;s a concern for everybody,&#8221; Gautam George, a pulmonologist from Jefferson Health, said.<\/p>\n<p>George says air pollution can make fighting infections like colds and the flu more difficult, along with other respiratory conditions.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Children, especially those that have asthma, which is a common childhood condition, can get exacerbated in the setting of bad air,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>The new report says more than 1 million children in Pennsylvania are breathing unhealthy air.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This can also increase the risk for other types of respiratory diseases down the line,&#8221; George said.<\/p>\n<p>The report says nearly half of Americans \u2014 152.3 million \u2014 now live in places with dangerous air pollutants.<\/p>\n<p>The state of our air report says people of color are more than twice as likely to live in areas with high air pollution levels.<\/p>\n<p class=\"content__tags__label\">In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new report from the American Lung Association says millions of Americans are being exposed to potentially dangerous&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":173481,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[30257,69,71,70],"class_list":{"0":"post-173480","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-air-quality","9":"tag-philadelphia","10":"tag-philadelphia-headlines","11":"tag-philadelphia-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173480\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}