A new report may have people in Louisville thinking twice before taking in a deep breath, according to the American Lung Association State of the Air report.

Air quality in Louisville is getting worse, but it's an increase in a certain type of air pollution in the city that is causing concern in Kentucky.

19% of residents live in areas with unhealthy air, and that's 870,000 people.

But we ranked 39th worst for ozone pollution and 64th worst for particle pollution as well.

In Louisville, the daily measures for ozone, smog and particle pollution for that matter have worsened.

The particle pollution measures both long term and short term, placed the metro area at the third worst in the Midland States region, which we define as Kentucky and Tennessee, Michigan and Ohio.

Particle pollution can cause lung cancer, for example.

And we know Kentucky has a mighty struggle with lung cancer ranking among the worst states in the nation, both for incidents as well as for Myrtle City.

Both ozone and particle pollution can cause premature deaths and other serious health effects like asthma attacks, heart attacks and stroke and preterm births, even impaired cognitive function later in life.

So both are serious causes of respiratory disease and death.

We've made huge progress over the years as a result of the Clean Air Act, but that some of that progress is getting erased by climate change.

The good news is that EPA has finalized new air pollution rules that will help clean up particle pollution and will help to address climate change.

And so this we can celebrate.

And there's work that we can do as individuals.

So so, for example, the Lung Association is urging the Environmental Protection Agency to set some long overdue, stronger national limits on ozone pollution, and that would benefit our air quality here in the metro area.

Stronger limits would help people to, you know, protect themselves and to drive clean up of pollution sources here and all across the country.

Other ways the American Lung Association says people can help reduce air pollution, take advantage of tax incentives to reduce emissions from their vehicles, and support efforts to strengthen Environmental Protection Agency Limits on air pollution.