JACKSON, Miss.—Data from Mississippi’s air quality monitoring stations shows an upward trend over the past decade in moderate or worse pollution days in southeast Mississippi, increasing the risk that Mississippians will develop respiratory conditions.
In 2015, Forrest County had 50% of days in this moderate range. That number dropped in 2016 and then increased steadily before spiking to 60% in 2023 before falling to 45% in 2024. Hancock, Harrison and Jackson counties have followed similar trends.
While air pollution in Mississippi does not often reach levels that the EPA designates as “dangerous for sensitive populations,” Dr. Constance Barnes-Woods of Jackson’s Beanstalk Pediatrics often sees children with acute and chronic respiratory issues in her practice. She said even low levels of air pollution increase the risk of respiratory issues developing in children.
“In my professional opinion, any exposure to poor air quality, whether minimal or more severe, can put children at increased risk of asthma,” Barnes-Woods said. “Moderate air quality can be a risk for respiratory issues, in particular asthma for children, because … poor air quality can cause increased inflammation in the airway.”
Asthma is a chronic, often lifelong condition in which inflammation in the airways leads to constriction and difficulty breathing. Genetics, air pollution and smoke exposure—especially tobacco smoke—are major factors that can lead to children developing asthma. Children who are diagnosed with respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, are especially at risk.
“Studies show that (children) … can have lung damage from the RSV infection, especially if it’s a severe infection, so it increases the risk of asthma in the future,” Barnes-Woods said.
Air Pollution in Mississippi
The EPA recognizes two major categories of air pollution: ground-level ozone and particulate matter, or PM. There are key differences between the pollutant categories, but both are measured under the EPA’s Air Quality Index and have similar respiratory effects at comparable levels.
Mississippi’s climate plays a major role in reducing ground-level ozone pollution across the state. Ozone forms when nitrogen oxides, or NOx, or sulfur oxides, or SOx, react with heat and sunlight, and moisture suppresses catalyst formation within this chemical reaction. Rodney Cuevas, manager of the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality’s air management branch, said when his department detects or forecasts high levels of air pollutants, it communicates that information to the public.
“It’s very rare that we have extremely high ozone … if we’re forecasting ozone and it gets above an AQI of 100, we’ll put out what we call an ozone action day to the public,” Cuevas said. “We try to tell people—try to preach to them—don’t cut grass, don’t get gas in the middle of the day—anything that can cause excess NOx in the middle of the day.”
The MDEQ also communicates with industrial partners like Chevron and Bollinger to implement emission reduction plans on ozone action days and reduce the amount of NOx and SOx those facilities produce.
Localized events can cause spikes in AQI measurements. Notably, Harrison County measured 14 days over 100 AQI, the most of southeastern Mississippi’s measured counties. In October 2024, the MDEQ’s air division measured an AQI of 157 in Harrison County. This level of air pollution—in the EPA’s “unhealthy” range—would aggravate breathing even for people without preexisting respiratory conditions.
The apparent cause of this spike was a wildfire prescribed by the Mississippi Forestry Commission, a regular practice in De Soto National Forest, which borders the MDEQ’s Gulf Coast air monitoring station. While prescribed fires occasionally cause elevated PM 2.5 levels for the region, Cuevas said the danger is isolated to areas within these plumes of smoke.
“Anybody in the path between that monitor and the prescribed fire … they would feel the results, but this was a very localized event,” Cuevas said. “If you were outside this plume somewhere else in Harrison County, you would not have been affected.”
Limited Air Quality Data in Mississippi Increases Risk
Despite the MDEQ’s best efforts, localized data remains limited in Mississippi. Of the state’s 82 counties, only 10, or 12.1%, contain air quality monitoring stations that collect and record air pollution data. Cuevas said the MDEQ positioned these stations strategically to best capture data across the state with limited resources.
“We make sure that these monitors are spatially distributed evenly and … that they cover Mississippi adequately to depict the air quality across the state,” he said. “We just don’t have the manpower to have monitors in all 82 counties in Mississippi.”
A lack of air quality and monitoring is a widespread issue across the U.S. Research from Penn State’s Population Research Institute shows that 58% of U.S. counties do not have active air quality monitoring stations. This issue is especially prevalent in the Deep South, and Mississippi has the lowest proportion of counties covered when compared with other Southern states. Louisiana, for example, has active air quality monitoring stations in 34.4% of parishes, and Alabama has stations in 20.9% of counties.
Since most Mississippians do not have access to exact air quality data, limiting exposure to indoor air pollutants is the most effective way to protect from respiratory risks.
“In terms of asthma, unfortunately, we cannot change genetics, but we can change environmental factors like the air pollution. We can change smoke exposure,” Barnes-Woods said. “If the child is exposed to tobacco smoke, it increases the risk of developing asthma later in life, and if they already have a diagnosis of asthma, that itself increases the risk of complications from asthma.”
While children who can talk may be able to communicate that they have difficulty breathing, Barnes-Woods said parents may have to look for signs in infants and nonverbal children.
“We look at things like nasal flaring … that’s a sign, if the baby can’t talk,” Barnes-Woods said. “If you see your baby’s rib cage and that they’re barely breathing, you can see the ribs go to the air, that’s a sign of distress, and the last and probably most severe sign would be head bobbing. If an infant is head bobbing, they’re in trouble.”
In instances of respiratory distress, Barnes-Woods recommends using an inhaler and, if that is not effective or available, calling emergency services.
“If 911 or the emergency medical services cannot get to you, they can always use a paper bag and try to breathe into the bag to help that distress,” she said.
This article first appeared on RHCJC and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
