ShareThisBreathing smoggy air over the long term can be deadly.
That's the finding of a groundbreaking ozone study, published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine and co-authored by C. Arden Pope of Brigham Young University.
The new ozone study found that people who live in the areas with the highest concentrations -- such as Los Angeles -- had a higher annual risk of dying from respiratory illnesses. The risk is 25 to 30 percent higher than in cities with less ozone pollution.
"Previous research has connected short-term or acute ozone exposure to impaired lung function, aggravated asthma symptoms, increased emergency room visits and hospitalizations," said Michael C. Jerrett, of the University of California Berkeley and the study's lead author. "But the impact of long-term exposure to ozone on mortality had not been pinned down until now."
The study looked at 450,000 people in 96 metropolitan areas during two decades. It found that for every 10 parts-per-billion increase in ozone, the added risk of death from respiratory causes rose by 4 percent, mostly from pneumonia and chronic pulmonary obstructive disease.
Best known for key studies linking air pollution and its impact on health, Pope said the link between controlled ozone exposures and inflamed lungs has become clear over the years -- and so has the link between fine-particle, PM 2.5, pollution and heart and lung trouble.
This study zeroed in on the effect ozone has on health more precisely than ever before, he said.
"Exposure to particles is bad," he said. "Exposure to ozone is bad. Exposure to both is worse."
The information helps explain the relationship between cardiovascular and respiratory diseases and pollution. It also shows the important role ozone plays in respiratory illness, he added.
Pope noted that Salt Lake City was not among the cities included in the study because it does not have strong ozone data like many larger cities with a longer history of smog. Ozone is an odorless, colorless gas that tends to be a problem in Utah in the summer. It is a mixture of oxygen molecules and pollution chemicals created with the help of sunshine.
All of Utah met the old federal standards -- just barely. Under what's called the new "8-hour standard" announced a year ago, areas with ozone concentrations higher than 75 parts per billion on too many days will be in violation.
E-mail Judy Fahys at fahys(at)sltrib.com
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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