Air Pollution and Health

A large body of important scientific knowledge, including the Government of Canada's health research, confirms: whether visible or not, poor air quality is hazardous to human health and costly to the Canadian taxpayer wherever exposure occurs, be it in rural or urban areas.

The health effects of air pollution can be seen as a pyramid, with the mildest but not uncommon effects at the bottom of the pyramid, and the most severe but least common effects at the top of the pyramid. The pyramid shows that a large number of people are affected by minor problems related to air pollution, while the most severe impacts affect a much smaller number of Canadians.