Air Health Our Health

Learn all about the MKE Fresh Air Collective in Milwaukie, Wisconsin from my awesome guests Langston Verdin, MPH and Danika Hill Paulus! I first met Danika in 2024 when I was hosting a live podcast taping of Air Health Our Health at the annnual meeting of the American College of Chest Physicians, which was awarding a Chest Community Impact grant to make a mural in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Why is an organization of lung and ICU doctors funding a Wisconsin art project? Listen and learn!

What can you do?

• Become air aware- understand how to see air quality in your area, whether with IQ Air or AirNow or other programs that help you understand air quality

• Listen to the “What’s in an Index” episode with a pediatric pulmonologist to understand what we know and what we don’t know on how to use the AQI.

• Keep raising your voice about the impact of climate change on air quality.

• Review the State of the Air report from the American Lung Association- if air quality in your area is unhealthy, reach out to your city, county and state elected officials to ask them to do what they can to improve it.

• Consider a donation to the American Lung Association or the American College of Chest Physicians- both working to help people breathe clean air and live healthier lives. 

• If you are coming to Chest, please e-mail me at [email protected]. I’d love to see you! 

Mural image from MKE Fresh Air Collective

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For more information go to airhealthourhealth.org.

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Welcome to Season 7 of Air Health Our Health! Today's podcast episode was recorded at the national meeting of the American Thoracic Society, and I spoke with  Dr James Scales, a senior research fellow at Queen Mary University in London as well as Dr Simeonova of Johns Hopkins University.  We review how hyperlocal city policy can improve air pollution and health. 

Also, please note the differences with Season 7 pod releases- they may not come every month. Follow on social media for announcement of new releases! 

What can you do-

- Personal choices matter- anything you can do to reduce pollution is helpful

- Look into what your city or county can do to reduce pollution and traffic- nobody likes either of those things, so this can be a place where people come together. From park and rides, to improved transit, better bicycle infrastructure and more - getting out of individual car rides and into the community is good for health in a host of ways

- For more on the importance of vehicle fleets and health, listen to the Road to Clean Air episode and check out the multiple reports from the American Lung Association on health benefits of zero-emission transportation.

- Consider a donation to the American Lung Association, which is always working to help people breathe cleaner air

As we enter wildfire season, I share an interview with Stacie Reveles of the Cystic Fibrosis Research Institute.  She is the mother of a child with a complex lung disease that makes navigating the reality of wildfires and a changing climate even more challenging. Listen as she shares her story and wisdom about how to live with the reality of increasing wildfires and how to protect and prepare yourself and your family. 

Thank you for listening to Season Six of Air Health Our Health. See you back in the Fall!

To Do- 

• Learn about hardening your home and creating a defensive perimeter to protect against wildfire from the National Interagency Fire Center. 

• Listen to the episode “Our Health in Wildfire Season” about how to protect health during wildfire or smoke events.

• Listen to the episode “Fighting Fire with Fire” with wildland firefighter Bodie Shaw for details on prescribed burns and preventing catastrophic fire.

• Prepare an updated Go Bag for everyone in your family at the beginning of wildfire season with essential medications, clothes, and other basic needs.

• Strengthen your support and community. We are really all in this together, and we know that bonds of neighborhood and community are vital for surviving crises.  This can be by joining an ALA Better Breathing Club if you are living with lung disease. If you are older looking into a Village community in the area which helps seniors age in place with support. Churches can also be a vital source of support and community.

• Finally, consider a donation to the American Thoracic Society, which helps the world breathe.

Note- original interview recorded for the ATS Breathe Easy podcast.

Family and Fire Image from Caleb Cook on Unsplash.

Allergies can be miserable, and like other threats in the air, can often be invisible but cause a great deal of misery! For this episode, Dr Sharmilee Nyenhuis from the University of Chicago teaches us about pollen, how it affects us, and how it is changing. Listen and learn! 

• Know your own allergies, and make a plan for that pollen season- avoiding peak pollen times outdoors, rinsing pollen off your face and maybe your sinuses when you come indoors, keeping windows closed and more

• Check out the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America Home Checklist for Allergies

• Find a pollen counter that actually counts pollen in real time, not based on historic controls. With climate change, history doesn’t predict what may be going on outdoors

• The time is always right to run a HEPA filter- if it’s not sweeping the pollen from your air, it will be cleaning out pollution or catching viruses. 

• Share this episode with a friend who suffers from allergies.

• For more on the interaction of climate change and plant biology, listen to the “Science over Politics” episode from Season One. 

• Consider a donation to the American Lung Association, who works hard to help those with asthma and allergies breathe better

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For more information go to airhealthourhealth.org.

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Pollen image by Alex Jones on Unsplash

When we gather indoors and exhale CO2, levels can rapidly rise and impair our cognitive function, even at levels that are pretty typical for indoor buildings in the US. But solutions are surprisingly cheap and easy! Today I'm joined by Dr. Georgia Lagoudas PhD, MIT grad and Senior Fellow and faculty at Brown University’s School of Public Health, where she brings extensive expertise in biosecurity and indoor air quality. She leads the  Clean Indoor Air Initiative at Brown, advancing policy and implementation projects to improve indoor air quality.

We discuss CO2 impact on you and your community, and what you can do!

To Do-

- If you can afford it, consider purchasing a simple sensor that detects CO2 and PM2.5.

• You want your CO2 level less than 1000, perhaps 800 if you have kids in the home and your PM2.5 average under 5 ucg/m3. Prioritize the PM2.5, but pay attention to the CO2 as well

• Air Monitor Review Links from Dr Lagoudas- BreatheSafeAir and HouseFresh do reviews, like this one

- Find out if your work or child’s school monitors indoor air quality- if not, consider advocating for indoor air quality sensors. It will help reduce absenteeism at work and at school and improve test scores!

- Check out the Clean Indoor Air Initiative at Brown to encourage clean indoor air policies at local, state and federal level. You can find there the state guide for clean air. 

- As always, consider a donation to the American Lung Association!

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For more information go to https://airhealthourhealth.org/co2tax.

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We all need to eat. We also all need to breathe clean air. Around the country and the world the practice of agricultural burning is used to remove crop residue. This can often be the most efficient or cost-effective from the perspective of the individual farmer, but can also affect the people living and working in the area.   Dr Laura C. Myers, M.D., M.P.H  is a lung and ICU doctor at Kaiser Permanente who researches people with lung diseases and how air quality and heat can affect them. Join me to learn about agricultural burning and its health impact. We also explore what can be done to minimize this impact while ensuring both a healthy food production and healthy communities. 

To Do-

• Where possible, encourage your community to support farmers in alternatives to biomass burning through regenerative agricultural practices. Many agricultural universities across the US are studying this, and supporting up front costs for farmers may help improve their soil, profit margins and keep surrounding communities healthier. 

• Make sure you have clean air indoors- no smoking, vaping, open flames, etc. You can learn more from the “Clean Air Gift Guide” episode from earlier this season.

• Spread the word about the importance of clean air indoors- reducing pollution from gas stoves, ensuring good air filtration and more can help improve resilience when agricultural burning is occurring. 

• If you or a loved one has asthma or airway disease, make sure they know about clean air resources. 

• Sign up for air quality alerts in your area.

Consider a donation to the American Lung Association, which helps patients with airway disease understand the air they breathe and works for clean air for all.

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For more information go to airhealthourhealth.org.

Follow on Facebook and Instagram. Photo by Ferdinand Stöhr on Unsplash

We now have more information about how e-cigarettes can affect adolescents. It is tragic, because kids had really gotten the message that cigarettes are bad for you, but candy-flavored e-cigarettes seem safer and lure them in. Kids who start with e-cigs are more likely to become smokers, use other addictive substances, have depression and attempt suicide. I recorded a Breathe Easy podcast for the American Thoracic Society on this topic with Dr. Laura E. Crotty Alexander, a lung doctor who studies e-cigarettes in the lab. Listen and learn about how e-cigarettes can affect youth in your community and what can be done to help them break free and ideally never get addicted in the first place.

What can you do?

• Learn about how a comprehensive flavor ban may help your state or community with the episode Breaking States Free from Flavored Tobacco & Why it Matters. Post

• If an adolescent in your life vapes, learn how to talk to them about it in an evidence-based way with the Do the Vape Talk- episode which includes expertise from the American Lung Association, Post

• Finally, consider a donation to the American Thoracic Society, whose Tobacco Action Committee works hard to protect Americans from the tobacco industry and who recorded the Breathe Easy podcast that is the foundation of this episode.

Studies covered in pod

Golder S et al. Vaping and harm in young people: umbrella review Tobacco Control Aug 2025. 

Bauer SE et al. Treatment of Nicotine Use in Adolescents Under 18 Years of Age: An Official American Thoracic Society Clinical Practice Guideline. Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 2025 

Happy Holidays! This episode is a short and sweet guide to those who want to give the gift of clean air this holiday season- a gift that keeps on giving!

To Do-

Go to AirHealthOurHealth.org/GiftGuide to share clean air gift ideas with friends and loved ones!

• To learn more about the health impacts of gas stoves, listen to The Fire Inside episode.

• To learn more about gas-powered lawn equipment, listen to The Yards on Fire episode.

• HEPA filters and other technologies are covered in multiple episodes, including Our Health and Wildfire Season and The Air Inside When the Smoke Is Outside.

• To find out what your state, county, or city could do for clean air for all, listen to last season’s episode: Bypassing Toxic Politics: Clean Air and Climate Action at the State and Local Level.

• Finally, consider a gift to your local food bank. It is so important during the holidays to make sure everyone has enough to celebrate.

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For more information go to airhealthourhealth.org.

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Image Art by Kira auf der Heide on Unsplash

Kids are our future and have the most to lose from the changing climate affecting our planet. However, they also have the most to gain from us taking action now to understand how climate change impacts the health of our children and what we can do. Today I am joined by two amazing pediatric lung doctors and mothers. 

Dr Anne Coates is the mother of four and a pediatric pulmonologist in the Maine Medical Partners Pediatric Specialty Care practice and teaches the next generation training in pediatric medicine at Maine Medical Center and is an associate professor of pediatrics at the Tufts University School of Medicine 

Dr. Christy Sadreameli has two boys and is an assistant professor of pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine where she co-directs the Childhood Interstitial and Diffuse Lung Disease and Immunologic Disorders Clinic.  

What can you do?

– You can learn more about how to keep your family healthy during things like wildfire events from  "Our Health in Wildfire Season" episode

– You can learn about how pollen is changing with climate change from the episode “Science over Politics.”

- Learn about heat events and how to stay safe from the “Heat Kills” episode with Professor Ollie Jay  

– Learn what you can do from the "Clean air and Climate Advocacy for Busy People" episode or the "”Bypass Toxic Politics” episode or “Your Little Grain of Sand” with Mom’s Clean Air Force

- Finally, consider a donation to the American Lung Association, who is working for clean air and a stable climate for all our kids.

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For more information go to airhealthourhealth.org.

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Podcast Image by Heike Mintel on Unsplash

Research can seem like something that happens far off, but doesn’t affect us on a daily basis. Nothing could be further from the truth! How does what we breathe cause disease? Can we intervene? If I have to choose, should I buy an air purifier or an air conditioner? How much does that help? What about if I have a family member with lung disease? Does it matter if I’m healthy? We need publicly funded research to answer questions like these that are of interest to the public, not only research of interest to private industry. We also need people who have the skills to answer those questions and avoid pitfalls and bias that can plague bad research. Join me today to learn how changes at the National Institutes of Health affect all of us and what we can do!

Dr Mary Rice, MD, MPH is a pulmonary and critical care medicine physician and the director of the Center for Climate, Health and the Global Environment at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health. She is the chair of the Environmental, Occupational and Population Health Assembly of the American Thoracic Society and leads the environmental health research program of the American Lung Association Lung Health Cohort and is an NIH funded researcher. 

To Do

• Speak up about the value of research- contact your elected officials about the importance of the NIH and publicly funded research

• If you or a loved one suffers from a chronic disease, share how important it is to fund research into disease prevention and treatment. Find the organization that advocates for those with that illness and work with them to raise the issue to decision makers and funders.

• If you work in research, share your story and help people understand how the scientific method, though not perfect, is one of our best tools in moving human health forward

• Learn more about the cuts from a former program officer at the NIH as well as a pediatric pulmonologist that was recorded at the ATS meeting in 2025 for the ATS Breathe Easy podcast

• If you work in healthcare, get engaged with your professional societies to advocate for the importance of research.

• Consider a donation to the American Thoracic Society, which also funds research to help the world breathe

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Record a question or comment on the podcast site or send an e-mail via the website.