Air pollution
Health effects

Air pollution has both acute and chronic effects on human health, affecting a number of different systems and organs but principally affect the body's respiratory system and the cardiovascular system. Afflictions include minor to chronic upper respiratory irritation such as difficulty in breathing, wheezing, coughing, asthma and heart disease, lung cancer, stroke, acute respiratory infections in children and chronic bronchitis in adults, aggravating pre-existing heart and lung disease, or asthmatic attacks.

Short and long term exposures have been linked with premature mortality and reduced life expectancy and can result in increased medication use, increased doctor or emergency department visits, more hospital admissions and premature death. Diseases that develop from persistent exposure to air pollution are environmental health diseases, which develop when a health environment is not maintained.

Even at levels lower than those considered safe by United States regulators, exposure to three components of air pollution, fine particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide and ozone, correlates with cardiac and respiratory illness. Individual reactions to air pollutants depend on the type of pollutant a person is exposed to, the degree of exposure, and the individual's health status and genetics. The most common sources of air pollution include particulates and ozone (often from burning fossil fuels), nitrogen dioxide, and sulfur dioxide. Children aged less than five years who live in developing countries are the most vulnerable population to death attributable to indoor and outdoor air pollution.

Under the Clean Air Act, U.S. EPA sets limits on certain air pollutants, including setting limits on how much can be in the air anywhere in the United States. Mixed exposure to both carbon black and ozone could result in significantly greater health affects.
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