Air pollution in North Carolina makes people sick and cuts lives short. Air pollution triggers heart attacks and strokes. It sends people to the emergency room with respiratory problems, causes asthma attacks, and contributes to respiratory illness in otherwise healthy people.

In the simplest terms, air pollution irreparably damages lung tissues. It works in the same way that cigarette smoke injures your lungs and heart.

That’s the analysis from Environment North Carolina Research and Policy Center’s February report, "Air Pollution and Public Health in North Carolina," which estimates the health impact of air pollution in North Carolina.

The estimates cover particulate pollution (or soot), which comes from smokestacks and vehicle exhaust, and ground-level ozone (or smog), which develops across much of the state on hot summer days as a result of emissions from cars, trucks, smokestacks and other sources. The estimates rely on information from the World Health Organization, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the North Carolina State Center for Health Statistics.

Taken together, these sources reveal that air pollution places a significant burden on the health of all North Carolinians. Environment North Carolina believes the findings point toward the urgent need to curb air pollution from cars and trucks. Among the key findings:

Pubilc health impacts
Many North Carolina residents suffer health problems caused by pollution even at levels that comply with air pollution standards. Despite the fact that air pollution levels in North Carolina meet health standards during much of the year, even “safe” levels of pollution can cause damage. Scientific experiments show that there is no threshold level of pollution that is safe for humans.

Air pollution causes thousands of people to be admitted to area hospitals every year and increases the burden of chronic disease. Air pollution leads to an estimated 6,000 hospital admissions for respiratory disease, 2,000 for cardiovascular disease annually, and causes an estimated 200,000 asthma attacks annually.

Children are especially vulnerable to the effects of air pollution. Every year, air pollution causes dozens of infant deaths and hundreds of thousands of school absences due to illness. Injuries caused by air pollution early in life can have permanent consequences.

A call for reform
In 1999, the two largest sources of North Carolina’s air pollution were coal-fired power plants and automobiles. In 2002, the state Legislature passed the Clean Smokestacks law, which will reduce power plant pollution in-state by more than 70 percent over the next
seven years.

Reducing pollution from vehicles is the next priority step toward healthy air at the state level. Because emissions from vehicles and industrial facilities located upwind from North Carolina also contribute to the overall problem, action at the regional and federal level will also be required.