Dr. Williams is a toxicologist, Dr. Langley is a medical epidemiologist, and Mr. Howell, is an industrial hygiene consultant with the Occupational and Environmental Epidemiology Branch, Division of Public Health, NC Department of Health and Human Services.
Environmental ozone poses risks to public health, especially in the summer months.
Ozone is one of the criteria pollutants identified by the US EPA under the Clean Air Act of 1970. The same level was set as a secondary standard to protect public welfare, damage to crops, animals, and buildings. Compliance with the new standard should significantly decrease ozone-related emergency room and physician visits, and hospital admissions due to respiratory problems such as asthma and pneumonia. The EPA also proposes setting the secondary ozone standard at 0.08 ppm over 8 hours. In this paper we review data supporting the proposed US EPA 8-hour standard, outline the health effects associated with exposure to ozone, and summarize precautions to minimize the risk of adverse effects from ozone exposure.