INSIGHT: Global Air Pollution and Health—Rapidly Increasing Challenges, First Solutions

摘要

In the mid-20th century, industrial and economic progress in Europe and the U.S. greatly improved standards of living and population health, but also resulted in substantial increases in air pollution, with significant eàects on public health. Intense pollution episodes in Belgium in the 1930s, Donora, Pa., in the 1940s, and the London Fog of December 1952 brought these new problems to much wider public attention. The result was the first Clean Air Act regulations in England and the U.S. in the 1950s, passage and implementation of more comprehensive legislation beginning in the 1970s, and substantial reductions in exposures to nearly all pollutants over the past 40-plus years. This progress was widely recognized in the U.S. and Europe, andanalyses of the U.S. Clean Air Act benefits and costs documented the much higher benefits than costs of these improvements.