The San Joaquin Valley of California has poor air quality and high rates of asthma. Surveys were collected from 744 residents of the San Joaquin Valley from November 2014 to January 2015 to examine the public's views about air quality. The results of this study suggest that participants exposed to high PM2.5 (particulate matter less than 2.5 microns in size) concentrations perceived air pollution to be of the worst quality. Air quality in the San Joaquin Valley was primarily perceived as either moderate or unhealthy for sensitive groups. Females perceived air pollution to be of worse quality compared to males. Participants perceived unemployment, crime, and obesity to be the top three most serious community problems in the San Joaquin Valley. Participants viewed cars and trucks, windblown dust, and factories as the principle contributors to air pollution in the area. There is a need to continue studying public perceptions of air quality in the San Joaquin Valley with a more robust survey with more participants over several years and seasons.
Prescribed fire, intentionally ignited low-intensity fires, and managed wildfires-wildfires that are allowed to burn for land management benefit-could be used as a land management tool to create forests that are resilient to wildland fire. This could lead to fewer large catastrophic wildfires in the future. However, we must consider the public health impacts of the smoke that is emitted from wildland and prescribed fire. The objective of this synthesis is to examine the differences in ambient community-level exposures to particulate matter (PM 2.5 ) from smoke in the United States in relation to two smoke exposure scenarios-wildfire fire and prescribed fire. A systematic search was conducted to identify scientific papers to be included in this review. The Web of Science Core Collection and PubMed, for scientific papers, and Google Scholar were used to identify any grey literature or reports to be included in this review. Sixteen studies that examined particulate matter exposure from smoke were identified for this synthesis-nine wildland fire studies and seven prescribed fire studies. PM 2.5 concentrations from wildfire smoke were found to be significantly lower than reported PM 2.5 concentrations from prescribed fire smoke. Wildfire studies focused on assessing air quality impacts to communities that were nearby fires and urban centers that were far from wildfires. However, the prescribed fire studies used air monitoring methods that focused on characterizing exposures and emissions directly from, and next to, the burns. This review highlights a need for a better understanding of wildfire smoke impact over the landscape. It is essential for properly assessing population exposure to smoke from different fire types.
Our findings suggest that efforts designed to limit soda consumption would benefit asthma suffers by reducing hospital admissions. This, however, needs further research to confirm a direct causal association.
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