Credit: John Fowler/Flickr

PITTSBURGH—Air pollution is to blame for up to 33 million emergency room visits for asthma attacks around the world annually, according to a new study.

While previous research has looked at the connection between air pollution and a number of other diseases, the new study, led by researchers at George Washington University and published today in Environmental Health Perspectives, is the first to quantify the global burden of asthma caused by unhealthy air.

Asthma is the most prevalent chronic respiratory disease worldwide, affecting about 358 million people. In Pittsburgh, the region’s long-term problems with air pollution and asthma persist: Allegheny County, where Pittsburgh is situated, scored all F’s on the American Lung Association’s 2018 air quality report card, and recent research suggests that an estimated 22 percent of children in the most polluted parts of the city have asthma—as compared with the national average of 8 percent.

“A growing body of literature over the last several decades links health and air pollution, but we haven’t had a way to incorporate asthma before,” Susan C. Anenberg, lead author of the study and an […]