United States: June of 2023 brought Canadian wildfire smoke, which turned air conditions dangerous in both New York and Washington, DC. The air turned orange.
News outlets declared the air quality during that time the most degrading worldwide. The population donned face masks as protection from poisonous airborne materials instead of COVID-19.
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According to a study based at Penn State University, more than 50 million people in the US live in what researchers call “air quality monitoring deserts.”
The counties exist without operational air pollution monitoring stations within their borders. People cannot determine what they inhale because there are no monitoring stations available.
A place without any air-quality stations can be classified as a monitoring desert. Such areas lack any forms of pollutant detection equipment, warning systems, or pollution exposure data.
The research identifies 1,848 US counties that fall into the category of monitoring deserts. Almost 59% of US counties combined with 40% of US total landmass make up these monitoring desert territories.
Major setback for global air quality monitoring! The U.S. is halting the sharing of air quality data from its embassies, leaving many countries without reliable information. Experts warn this could jeopardize #PublicHealth efforts worldwide.https://t.co/Q7jPmDbyCB
— Change the Chamber (@ChangeUSChamber) March 12, 2025
As per Alexis Santos, co-author of the study and associate professor at Penn State, “Exposure to air pollution has been directly and indirectly to cancers, cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease, immune disorders and more,” earth.com reported.
“If we are not measuring air quality in large regions of the country, then we do not know how significant air pollution problems are,” Santos continued.
The information from air quality data enables the development of appropriate public health measures. People cannot measure the safety of outdoor conditions during wildfires when monitoring systems fail to exist.
The analysis demonstrates the necessity for deciding whether children should remain inside their homes and whether specific population groups should protect their faces with masks.
Is Your Air Safe?
Every day, millions of people exist without knowing their future health conditions. Lack of monitoring produces delayed consequences for emergency response operations.
Under these circumstances, we struggle to comprehend future health consequences. Scientific studies prove that exposure to contaminated air leads to asthma and heart attacks along with dementia and premature demise.
The relationships between pollution sources and air quality cannot be seen or calculated in areas without proper monitoring.