Surprisingly, the people who suffer most from this pollution don’t live in rural areas, where wood burning is more common. To get a clear picture, they divided the U.S. into small 4-by-4 kilometer squares and tracked how much pollution came from wood burning. In Chicago, for instance, the health risk from wood burning was over 30% higher in Black neighborhoods than in other parts of the city. The researchers believe this pattern is due to pollution drifting into the city from suburban areas, where more wood burning occurs. If you care about lung health, please read studies about marijuana’s effects on lung health, and why some non-smokers get lung disease and some heavy smokers do not.