Air pollution in California is serious problem

The recent RAND Corporation study has concluded that California's failure to meet air pollution standards was responsible for more than $193 million in hospital-based medical care from 2005 to 2007 as people were often in need of medical assistance suffering from asthma and pneumonia due to increased levels of air pollution.

The results of this study showed that exposure to excessive levels of ozone and particulate pollution caused around 30,000 emergency room visits and hospital admissions in three years time, from 2005-2007.

The results of this study were based on records from several air pollution agencies and hospitals to estimate how failing to meet federal and state standards for particulate matter and ozone would affect private and public insurer spending for hospital admissions for respiratory and cardiovascular causes, and emergency room visits for asthma throughout California from 2005-2007.

Air pollution in California is not as benign problem as some think it is. The combination of million of vehicles, and lot of sunlight heavily favors air pollution. The pollutants put out by automobiles in presence of sunlight create dangerous particles that pollute air, among which is also the infamous ozone, and of course smog.

Smog in Los Angeles

Last year report by the American Lung Association has revealed that many areas in California are among the the most polluted in the U.S., with air quality that is damaging the health of millions of people, and cities Los Angeles, Bakersfield, Calif., and Visalla-Porterville, Calif., rank among the five U.S. cities most polluted with particulate and ozone pollution.

Air quality is one of the prerequisites for healthy life, and California is currently struggling to ensure healthy life to large number of its people. Air pollution problem in California isn't something brand new, and is really at least a couple of decades old problem, meaning that California's government should have done more to tackle it.