dust pneumonia

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| image = Dust storm approaching Stratford, Texas.jpg

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| caption = A Dust Bowl-era dust storm in Texas (1935)

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| specialty =pulmonology

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Dust pneumonia describes disorders caused by excessive exposure to dust storms, particularly during the Dust Bowl in the United States.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8fM-ZWXPe_QC&pg=PA20|title=Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930s|last=Worster|first=Donald|date=2004-09-16|publisher=OUP USA|isbn=9780195174885|pages=20–21|language=en}} A form of pneumonia, dust pneumonia results when the lungs are filled with dust, inflaming the alveoli. {{cn|date=November 2020}}

Symptoms of dust pneumonia include high fever, chest pain, difficulty in breathing, and coughing. With dust pneumonia, dust settles all the way into the alveoli of the lungs, stopping the cilia from moving and preventing the lungs from ever clearing themselves.{{cn|date=November 2020}}

People who had dust pneumonia often died. There are no official death rates published for the Great Plains in the 1930s. In 1935, dozens of people died in Kansas from dust pneumonia. Red Cross volunteers made and distributed thousands of dust masks, although some farmers and other people in the affected areas refused to wear them.