Vehicles run along a freeway in Los Angeles, California, the United States, on April 19, 2023. Nearly 120 million people in the United States, or more than one in three, live in areas with unhealthy air quality, and people of color are disproportionately affected, according to a new report released on Wednesday.(Photo: Xinhua)

Nearly 120 million people in the United States, or more than one in three, live in areas with unhealthy air quality, and people of color are disproportionately affected, according to a new report released on Wednesday.

The "State of the Air" 2023 report, released by the American Lung Association, finds that after decades of progress on cleaning up sources of air pollution, about 119.6 million Americans still live in places with failing grades for unhealthy levels of ozone or particle pollution.

Again this year, the researchers of the report found that the burden of living with unhealthy air is not shared equally, with people of color 3.7 times more likely than white people to live in a county with three failing grades.

Although people of color are 41 percent of the overall U.S. population, they are 54 percent of the nearly 120 million people living in counties with at least one failing grade. And in the counties with the worst air quality that get failing grades for all three pollution measures, 72 percent of the 18 million residents affected are people of color, compared to 28 percent who are white, according to the report.

The report showed California is still home to a majority of the 10 most polluted U.S. cities, both in terms of ozone and particle pollution.

Los Angeles remains the city with the worst ozone pollution in the nation, as it has for all but one of the 24 years tracked by the report. California's Bakersfield displaced the state's Fresno as the metropolitan area with the worst short-term particle pollution, and Bakersfield continued in the most-polluted slot for year-round particle pollution, tied this year with Visalia, California.

The American Lung Association, the leading organization working to save lives by improving lung health and preventing lung disease through education, advocacy and research in the United States, has analyzed data since 2000 from official air quality monitors to compile the State of the Air report.

The report tracks and grades Americans' exposure to unhealthy levels of short-term spikes in particle pollution, annual particle pollution and ground-level ozone air pollution over a three-year period. The report this year covers 2019-2021.