>> Coming up in the next hour of local news on Arizona PBS, on Arizona horizon, we'll tell you about how bad the air quality is if the phoenix area.

Good evening and welcome to Arizona horizon.

The state of Arizona executed convicted murderer Frank Atwood at the state prison in Florence.

The 66-year-old was sentenced to death for the killing of 8-year-old Vickie hawk Hawkin.

Debbie Karlson said this marks final justice for our daughter, Vickie Lynn and our family waited for this day to come.

And a man carrying a gun and a knife and zip ties was arrested near United States Supreme Court justice Brett Kavanaugh's house in Maryland.

He was charged with the attempted murder of a Supreme Court justice and Roskey was dressed in black when he arrived at 1:00 a.m. and had a Glock, a knife, pepper spray duck duck tape and other tights to break into the house and kill him.

And survivors of the Uvalde, Texas school shooting testified before Congress urge urging commercialscommercialsurgingcommercials members to argument on gunto act on gun control.

>> Not knowing our reality will one day be hers unless we act now.

>> A southern Arizona woman has been sentenced to three areas of three years of supervised probation during the November 2020 general election and prosecutors say 56-year-old Krista Michelle Connor has her registration revoked to pay $890 in fines and surcharges and complete $100 of community service.

The >> The recently released report as phoenix, one of the worse cities for air quality and Jacob glass and Rudy Romo have more and visited one local person who confront this on a daily basis.

>> Reporter: Carbon emissions top the chart for reasons why air quality in the phoenix area ranks among the worst in the country and traffic jams like this can be a nightmare for many people facing this on a workday and everyday is tough for Jennifer Wynne, a lifelong asthmatic who preaches for a living in the phoenix area.

Unhealthy living make it difficult to breathe.

>> Bad quality days, it can range from I'm walking outside and it's just easier to get short of breath and feels heavy in the air and your chest feels heavy.

>> Reporter: According to the latest state of the air report by the American lung association, more than four in ten Americans live in places with unhealthy air pollution.

>> I have severe asthma and have had it all my life and we'll say we'll move to the phoenix area because it's a drier climate and people tend to do better.

But what happened when so many people moved here for the better air quality, more cars on the road and people brought their trees and grass and it got worse.

>> Reporter: When you breathe in zone, it's like a sunburn of the lungs and it's especially bad for anyone lives near a polluting source like freeways and gas plants and no one is exempt.

>> As we grow up, our lung function in everybody decreases and that's why older people are more vulnerable and sensitive to poor air quality and breathing that in.

Low income communities that are communities of color are disproportionately impacted by more quality, as well.

>> Reporter: All but one of the 25 worse cities for particle pollutionparticlepollution are in the United States.

This is largely due to smoke from the ongoing wildfires along the west coast states and Southwest.

This ALA report calculated nationwide pollution problems and phoenix ranks as the 11th 11th highest for poor quality.

11 cities are the worst of the 25 for air quality are in California and nine in the Northwest and four in the Southwest including phoenix and one in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area, including parts of Ohio and west Virginia.

When it comes to people at risk in cities with the most ozone pollution, the combination of phoenix and Mesa ranks number five.

Particle pollution contains tabernacle.There's a series of chemical reactions and this happens during the hottest months.

>> In the winter, people use their fire dozen fireplaces.

We live in a desert and we have winds and under high pressure and high wind and hot temperatures and that just allows lugsallows that to slowly build up.

>> Reporter: It's emission from cars trucks, trucks and buses.

All contribute to the greenhouse effect.

It helps to drive less and pass on the purchase of nonindigenous plants.

These things are echoed by the Maricopa association of governments.

>> As we bring if people, they bring in their plants and some are not good for air quality and we get ozone.

>> Reporter: The clean air act, enacted in 1963 has been successful from power plants and industry and a change in climate is making it harder to protect human health.

So forman for anyone suffering, getting ready meaning means checking air quality quality.

>> You wake up and see the haze and know this won't be a good day.

>> Air quality impacts different socioeconomic grooms and accordinggroups and peopleof color live in a county with a failing grade for at least one pollutant and three and a half times with failing grades for all three, particulate and vehicle emissions.

Joan us now to further discuss the air quality is Ari Helpert department and thank you for joining.

With just heard in that package about, you know, checking your phone every morning to see if the high pollution advisory is there, and is it getting worse.

>> Air quality has improved over the last few decades.

We're seeing the varying effects that cause the air pollution to become worse during spring and summer and air quality has been a concern here in Maricopa county because of the geographic location, topography and climate.

Of course, the hot desert days are going to produce more ground-level ozone.

When we say there's a high pollution advisory, that's when we see the levels read by our air monitors are reaching a level that is unsafe for the public and also from the EPA, we've had our thresholds reduced in the past couple of years and so now, we're at a 70 parts per billion threshold and meaning for high pollution because of this level.

In order to protect the safety and health of the public, we offer restrictions to limit wood burning, the use of leaf employersblowers.

>> You mentioned leaf blowork ers and no burn daysblowers.They're not all the same.

>> They're naturally occurs.

occurring.

>> We have the wildfires and all emissions come to Maricopa county and react to create ozone which is bad for the respiratory health and an increase in the number of vehicles on the road, commercial and noncommercial and vehicle emissions react with the sunlight and create ground-level ozone which is what we tried to minimize by following certain tips offering incentives.

>> And so, what about the heat?

It's getting hotter and hotter and getting really, really hot and does that contribute to contribution?

>> I does and exacerbates the Poeproduction and a chemical reaction with sunlight heat with nitrogen oxcide and so, this contributes to that and that's why during the spring and summermans, asummer months, it reaches a higher level.

>> Communities of color are impacted and what goes into this?

>> Well, that's definitely on the state of the air report that came out from the American lung association.

Mayor.We focus on the overall air quality that comes into our county.

Now, there are demographics that are affected by air pollution more than others and those are what we call sensitive groups and involves children, the ederly and those with existing respiratory conditions.

Depending where these air pollution concentrations concentrate or become more of an issue, it has to do with the town, the area, geographic location because this is base on airflow.

If we're talking about ozone, we have ozone formed in the western part of the county or even other states and it has time to react with sunlight.

By the time the temperature cools, it's in the east and that's why we see higher concentrations of that in the eastern part of the county.

When we talk about par particulate matter, it's down to central phoenix, downtown, and all of that and it happens to be where there are much more industries.

>> We'll see that in certain areas.

When you see that high pollution advisory, you stay inside or work around it?

>> There's a way to live with this and not an unsolvable problem.

As cliche, the community comes together and we're able to face these challenges and reduce the air contamination and what people do is drive less, carpool, telework and -- use public transportation and just take small steps, and there are so many different ways that people can help reduce air pollution, especially in the high pollution advisory days to stay safe.

Of course, take a look at the ad that air quality index to know if it's safe for you to engage in outdoor activities.

>> Thank you for joining us.

>> Thank you.

>> Coming up next on Arizona horizon, hear how nostalgia plays a part in healthy aging.

>> As people get older, they have more memories to reflect on and that nostalgia can help people age in healthier way by keeping them active both socially and physically and here to tell us more is an Arizona state university researcher studying the effects of nostalgia and thank you for joining us.

>> Thank you for having me.

>> I want to begin with the motivation and this doesn't seem incredibly obvious to me and what made you want to look into nostalgia and aging?

>> My dad was diagnosed with ALS in 2015.

As he became for debilitated, I was spending much more time with him.

I noticed in the last weeks before his death, he began to tell stories.

They were stories about his childhood.

HygroHe grew up in Brooklyn and grew up above a bakery and the sights and smells of the bakery and his dog, Jeff, and childhood playmates.

He was diagnosed with Scarlet fever and would massage his pain from the scarlet fever.

He passed away unexpectedly.

After that, I began to wonder, what about the stories?

What about the stories and how did they help him?

What was the mechanisms and how could I better understand what he was trying to express to me through the stories?

They were completely unsolicited and almost a reliving of his childhood and past rather than discrete memories.

>> Gives us a definition of nostalgia and something very permpersonal for people and how did you measure it?

>> I tried to understand the stories by looking at narrative gerentology and you found a linear process of problems solved and resolution.

These stories were fog fog like nothing like that.

They were storying about nothing and that meant everything.

I began to look at other types of literature that might help me to understand and nostalgia is defined as a bitter-sweet emobs, bitter-sweet emotion and reliving of the past and memories of home, warmth, comfort and love.

And can actually help our health, our healthy aging.

>> What were the benefits you were able to find?

This sounds like across the spectrum, not just an emotional way.

>> Oh, yes.

There's a mechanism that links the heart and the brain and the muscles in the face to the recalling and retelling of the stories.

And so what we found then and, again, this is theoretical, was that safety cues that we learn from the time we're children up can have calming effects both on the brain and the heart, which allow us then to socially connect better with others.

It's been umblyimplicated in activity and lower blood pressure and higher heart rate variable variability.

>> Any stories that hit home?

>> There are a number of stories.

What I found with the older adults that we worked with is they start by saying I don't have any good memories to share and I don't know why I'm here.

But once they open up and start to feel comfortable, the stories just flow out of them and you can feel that they are feeling these emotions and they are feeling these memories and they're remembering and feeling time spent with their grandmother and baking in the kitchen and birthday cards from their dad when they were small.

There are good memories there and I think we need to find ways we can unlock these and free people from thinking they don't have good memories, to leveraging opportunities to their shows their share those memories.

>> Is that the idea, you can give this to people as they age and do these exercises and improve aging?

>> What we found, given the links between the heart and brain and coo cues of safety, this can strengthen social, and emotional outcomes over time.

>> Julie, thank you for join us and your research on this.

>> Thank you.

>> And a programming note, Arizona horizon will be preempted tomorrow Arizona as PBS will carry the hearing of the January 6 committee investigating the riot at the U.S. capitol.

That's it for now and thank you for joining us and have a great evening.

- Another powerful edition of Arizona Horizon.

That has been a part of the news and public affairs programming in the Grand Canyon state >> Another powerful edition of Arizona for and part of the public affair's astate.

When I came to Arizona in 1918 1988 asve a