The Environmental Protection Agency changed their requirements for air pollution recently. The EPA lowered the maximum air quality index, or AQI, from 75 to 70. The change in regulation caused Baton Rouge to fall into ‘non-attainment’, with an AQI of 72. 
This means the air pollution in Baton Rouge is now too high. Slawomir Lomnicki is a professor, chemist, and researcher at the LSU Superfund Research Center. He and his colleagues have done many studies on particulate matter containing environmentally persistent free radicals as well as their effects on adult and infant health. 
Slawomir’s research suggests that chronic or long-term exposure to air containing high levels of these dangerous particulates can cause asthma and other respiratory diseases to be more severe. This occurs especially in children, and it happens because children’s lungs are still developing. 
Margaret Power was diagnosed with asthma as a child. Lomnicki’s research suggest children with chronic exposure to detrimental malicious particulate matter are more prone to develop respiratory diseases, just like Margaret.