Particulate matter and emergency visits for asthma: a time-series study of their association in the presence and absence of wildfire smoke in Reno, Nevada, 2013–2018

Kiser, Daniel; Metcalf, William J.; Elhanan, Gai; Schnieder, Brendan; Schlauch, Karen; Joros, Andrew; Petersen, Craig; Grzymski, Joseph J.

doi:10.1186/s12940-020-00646-2

Cited by 30 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…Impacts on mortality and cardiovascular morbidity are less certain (e.g., Reid, Brauer, et al., 2016 ), but evidence for these outcomes of acute smoke exposure is growing (e.g., Doubleday et al., 2020 ; Magzamen et al., 2021 ; Wettstein et al., 2018 ). Several recent works have investigated differences in asthma‐related and respiratory hospital admissions on smoke‐impacted days compared to non‐smoke‐impacted days and found larger concentration response functions for PM 2.5 on smoke‐impacted days (Aguilera et al., 2021 ; DeFlorio‐Barker et al., 2019 ; Kiser et al., 2020 ). A potentially different impact of smoke PM 2.5 versus anthropogenic PM 2.5 on health is also supported by evidence from toxicological studies that suggest that smoke‐sourced PM 2.5 may be more harmful than other sources of PM 2.5 due to compositional differences (Wegesser et al., 2009 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Estimated Mortality and Morbidity Attributable to Smoke Plumes in the United States: Not Just a Western US Problem

et al. 2021

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As anthropogenic emissions continue to decline and emissions from landscape (wild, prescribed, and agricultural) fires increase across the coming century, the relative importance of landscape‐fire smoke on air quality and health in the United States (US) will increase. Landscape fires are a large source of fine particulate matter (PM 2.5 ), which has known negative impacts on human health. The seasonal and spatial distribution, particle composition, and co‐emitted species in landscape‐fire emissions are different from anthropogenic sources of PM 2.5 . The implications of landscape‐fire emissions on the sub‐national temporal and spatial distribution of health events and the relative health importance of specific pollutants within smoke are not well understood. We use a health impact assessment with observation‐based smoke PM 2.5 to determine the sub‐national distribution of mortality and the sub‐national and sub‐annual distribution of asthma morbidity attributable to US smoke PM 2.5 from 2006 to 2018. We estimate disability‐adjusted life years (DALYs) for PM 2.5 and 18 gas‐phase hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) in smoke. Although the majority of large landscape fires occur in the western US, we find the majority of mortality (74%) and asthma morbidity (on average 75% across 2006–2018) attributable to smoke PM 2.5 occurs outside the West, due to higher population density in the East. Across the US, smoke‐attributable asthma morbidity predominantly occurs in spring and summer. The number of DALYs associated with smoke PM 2.5 is approximately three orders of magnitude higher than DALYs associated with gas‐phase smoke HAPs. Our results indicate awareness and mitigation of landscape‐fire smoke exposure is important across the US.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Estimated Mortality and Morbidity Attributable to Smoke Plumes in the United States: Not Just a Western US Problem

et al. 2021

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“…The full health impact of the 2019-2020 wildfires will not be known for some time due to lags in the availability of health data, but current assessments estimate around 90 increased deaths in Washington State (Liu et al, 2021) in 2020, and over 400 additional deaths and a few thousand increased hospitalizations from the 2019-2020 bushfires in Australia (Borchers Arriagada et al, 2020). Because these studies rely on concentration-response functions from non-wildfire air pollution studies, we would expect the number of deaths related to wildfire smoke to rise when using a potentially steeper concentration-response function for wildfire smoke (Aguilera et al, 2021;Kiser et al, 2020).…”

Section: Insight 3: Climate Change Forces Fire Extremes To Reach New Dimension With Drastic Impactsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ten new insights in climate science 2021: a horizon scan

et al. 2021

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Non-technical summaryWe summarize some of the past year's most important findings within climate change-related research. New research has improved our understanding about the remaining options to achieve the Paris Agreement goals, through overcoming political barriers to carbon pricing, taking into account non-CO 2 factors, a well-designed implementation of demand-side and nature-based solutions, resilience building of ecosystems and the recognition that climate change mitigation costs can be justified by benefits to the health of humans and nature alone. We consider new insights about what to expect if we fail to include a new dimension of fire extremes and the prospect of cascading climate tipping elements.

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“…PM2.5 specifically from wildfires has been shown to be detrimental to respiratory health as well (ref. [13][14][15]). Washoe County, in Northern Nevada (NV), was heavily exposed to smoke from the 2020 wildfires, while simultaneously experiencing increasing numbers of COVID-19 cases.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

SARS-CoV-2 test positivity rate in Reno, Nevada: association with PM2.5 during the 2020 wildfire smoke events in the western United States

Kiser

Elhanan

Metcalf

et al. 2021

J Expo Sci Environ Epidemiol

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Background Air pollution has been linked to increased susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2. Thus, it has been suggested that wildfire smoke events may exacerbate the COVID-19 pandemic. Objectives Our goal was to examine whether wildfire smoke from the 2020 wildfires in the western United States was associated with an increased rate of SARS-CoV-2 infections in Reno, Nevada. Methods We conducted a time-series analysis using generalized additive models to examine the relationship between the SARS-CoV-2 test positivity rate at a large regional hospital in Reno and ambient PM2.5 from 15 May to 20 Oct 2020. Results We found that a 10 µg/m3 increase in the 7-day average PM2.5 concentration was associated with a 6.3% relative increase in the SARS-CoV-2 test positivity rate, with a 95% confidence interval (CI) of 2.5 to 10.3%. This corresponded to an estimated 17.7% (CI: 14.4–20.1%) increase in the number of cases during the time period most affected by wildfire smoke, from 16 Aug to 10 Oct. Significance Wildfire smoke may have greatly increased the number of COVID-19 cases in Reno. Thus, our results substantiate the role of air pollution in exacerbating the pandemic and can help guide the development of public preparedness policies in areas affected by wildfire smoke, as wildfires are likely to coincide with the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021.

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Particulate matter and emergency visits for asthma: a time-series study of their association in the presence and absence of wildfire smoke in Reno, Nevada, 2013–2018

Cited by 30 publications

References 31 publications

Estimated Mortality and Morbidity Attributable to Smoke Plumes in the United States: Not Just a Western US Problem

Estimated Mortality and Morbidity Attributable to Smoke Plumes in the United States: Not Just a Western US Problem

Ten new insights in climate science 2021: a horizon scan

SARS-CoV-2 test positivity rate in Reno, Nevada: association with PM2.5 during the 2020 wildfire smoke events in the western United States

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