Risk is the chance that something may cause a bad outcome.
Breathing air containing air toxics can increase the risk of breathing problems, heart disease, impaired brain development, infertility, birth defects, and various types of cancer. Health effects can happen due to either short-term or long-term exposure to air toxics. Whether a person experiences health problems from air toxics depends on many factors including how long the contact lasted, how often someone breathes the chemical, and a person's age.
Please click on the links below for more information on types of risk, definition of terms, and other resources to learn about how air toxics can impact health.