Air Pollution Kills as Many People as Cigarettes

By Neha Pathak, MD

Editor’s note: This story was updated Oct. 25, 2019 with a new analysis of air quality data by the Associated Press.

Oct. 8, 2019 — When she turned 62 in 2012, Latifa Moosajee and her husband decided to downsize from their home in small-town Georgia. They moved into a brand-new townhouse in the commercial heart of Atlanta. “It was my dream home … close to my daughter’s family.”

Moosajee was excited to spend more time with her grandchildren and lead an active life in the city. But the very first year in her new home, she began to wheeze and have trouble breathing. At first, she tried allergy pills, thinking it was just a rough ragweed season. Over the next 5 years, she had longer and longer stretches of wheezing with trouble breathing, and she needed more and more medicines. She started short-acting inhalers, then long-acting inhalers, and eventually needed steroids just to keep her airways open.

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