These Are CA's Top 10 Most-Polluted Cities, Report Says
The towns and cities that made the list — and those that did not — may surprise you. A study from IQAir has revealed that California's top 10 most polluted cities include Happy Camp, Baldwin Park and Ridgewood. The World Health Organization (WHO) has identified air pollution as the greatest environmental threat to human health, causing one out of every nine deaths worldwide. The study examined 7,812 locations across the world using data collected from air quality monitoring stations. The most polluted municipality in the U.S. was Coraopolis, Pennsylvania.
Published : 2 months ago by Bea Karnes in Environment
CALIFORNIA — Wildfires cause widespread concerns about air quality in California, as haze and smoke prompts alerts. The smoke obscures skylines, decreases visibility and causes breathing problems for people with underlying health conditions.
The World Health Organization (WHO) notes that air pollution causes one out of every nine deaths worldwide and considers air pollution to be the greatest environmental threat to human health. Poor air quality exacerbates health conditions such as asthma, stroke, lung disease, and cancer.
A new study from IQAir has pollution statistics for cities around the world from 2018 to 2023. The report examined 7,812 locations across the world using data collected from air quality monitoring stations.
Three California cities had air pollution levels that exceeded WHO standards by three to five times. Happy Camp, which choked on wildfire smoke in 2020, led the way; followed by Baldwin Park and Ridgewood.
To keep the statistics in perspective, Happy Camp's air quality index was 16.8. Compare that to Delhi, India, recently hit 347, or Dhaka, Bangladesh at 185, or Milano, Italy at 143.
The most-polluted municipality in the U.S. was Coraopolis, Pennsylvania, a town of 5,740, which came in at 19.9.
Here are California's top 10 most-polluted cities, according to IQAir, with numbers expressing the concentration of air pollutants in micrograms per cubic meter of air:
Read the full study from IQAir here.