The World Health Organization sets a guideline that people shouldn’t breathe more than 5 micrograms of fine particulate matter per cubic meter of air, on average, throughout a year.
The few oases of clean air that meet World Health Organization guidelines are mostly islands, as well as Australia and the northern European countries of Finland and Estonia.
Although North America is one of the cleaner regions in the world, in 2023 wildfires burned 4 percent of Canada’s forests, an area about half the size of Germany, and significantly impaired air quality.
Without accounting for short-term exposures, “we might be underestimating the mortality burden from air pollution,” said Yuming Guo, a professor at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, and one of the study’s authors.
But studies that dig deeper show air quality is still an issue, said Gaige Kerr, a research scientist at George Washington University and the lead author of the disparities paper published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.
Dr. Kerr’s research showed that mortality rates were highest on the Gulf Coast and in the Ohio River Valley, in areas dominated by petrochemical and manufacturing industries.
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