Do N95 masks protect against poor air quality?

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HOUSTON — We’ve been getting a lot of air quality alerts lately. That's when high levels of pollutants are found in the air on a certain day. Recently those days have been pretty common.

The four major pollutants that contribute to our poor air quality include:

Seniors, children and people with compromised immune systems are told to be careful on these days and to limit their activities outside.

However, experts say you probably already have protection against poor quality, maybe shoved into a drawer somewhere – a face mask. N95 masks don't just protect against COVID, they also protect against pollution.

According to Women's Health, those higher-quality masks can filter out the small particles associated with pollution. Just like with COVID, cloth masks and surgical masks provide some level of protection but do not work as well as the N95 masks.

It's not just Texans digging around for their masks again. As wildfires in Canada cause smoke to descend on large parts of the Northeast, residents are being told to mask up again.

The air is so bad people are being told to only go outside when they have to, and if they do, N95 masks will help filter out those dangerous smoke particles

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