46% of U.S. Children Breathe Unhealthy Air — 2024 State of the Air Report Finds EPA Rollbacks Threaten Progress

The number of U.S. Individuals aged under 18 years breathing unhealthy, polluted air where they lived between 2022 and 2024 totaled 33.5 million, or 46% of this population, according to a press release from the American Lung Association.

This finding comes from the American Lung Association’s 27th annual “State of the Air” report, released on April 22, 2026, which analyzed quality-assured air pollution data collected between 2022, and 2024. The report evaluated levels of ground-level ozone (smog) and particle pollution (soot) across the United States, assigning failing grades to communities where pollution exceeded health-based thresholds.

Among the pediatric population, 7 million children — or 10% of all children in the U.S. — live in communities that received failing grades for all three measures of air pollution tracked in the report: ozone, short-term particle pollution, and year-round particle pollution.

Will Barrett, assistant vice-president of the American Lung Association’s Nationwide Clean Air Policy, emphasized the heightened vulnerability of children to air pollution, stating, “Children’s lungs are still developing. For their body size, they’re breathing more air. And also, kids play outdoors, they’re more active, they’re breathing in more outdoor air … So, air pollution exposure in children can contribute to long-term developmental harm to their lungs, new cases of asthma, increased risks of respiratory illness and other health considerations later in life.”