A new report finds that millions of people in Ohio continue to be exposed to excessive amounts of air pollution. The study was put together by the advocacy group Environment Ohio.
It found that in 2016, cities in Northeast Ohio reported elevated ozone or particulate matter (PM2.5) for at least a quarter of the year. Cleveland reported 114 days, Canton and Youngstown had 90 days, and Akron had 97 days.
Campaign organizer Nancy Goodes says population might skew the data, but Akron still has room for improvement.
“There’s also places that have higher populations than Akron that do have cleaner air. And that includes places like Dayton, and actually, Columbus has 71 bad air days and their population is 2 million,” she said.
Goodes says degraded air quality increases the risk of asthma, other health issues, and premature death.
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