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Estimating the Acute Health Impacts of Fire-Originated PM2.5 Exposure During the 2017 California Wildfires: Sensitivity to Choices of Inputs

Journal Article · · GeoHealth
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1029/2021GH000414· OSTI ID:1816690
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [2]
  1. Univ. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC (United States). Gillings School of Global Public Health. Dept. of Environmental Sciences and Engineering; Oak Ridge Inst. for Science and Education (ORISE), Research Triangle Park, NC (United States). Center for Public Health and Environmental Assessment Office of Research and Development US Environmental Protection Agency; OSTI
  2. Univ. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC (United States). Gillings School of Global Public Health. Dept. of Environmental Sciences and Engineering
  3. US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Research Triangle Park, NC (United States). Center for Public Health and Environmental Assessment Office of Research and Development
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Exposure to wildfire smoke increases the risk of respiratory and cardiovascular hospital admissions. Health impact assessments, used to inform decision-making processes, characterize the health impacts of environmental exposures by combining preexisting epidemiological concentration–response functions (CRFs) with estimates of exposure. These two key inputs influence the magnitude and uncertainty of the health impacts estimated, but for wildfire-related impact assessments the extent of their impact is largely unknown. We first estimated the number of respiratory, cardiovascular, and asthma hospital admissions attributable to fire-originated PM2.5 exposure in central California during the October 2017 wildfires, using Monte Carlo simulations to quantify uncertainty with respect to the exposure and epidemiological inputs. We next conducted sensitivity analyses, comparing four estimates of fire-originated PM2.5 and two CRFs, wildfire and nonwildfire specific, to understand their impact on the estimation of excess admissions and sources of uncertainty. We estimate the fires accounted for an excess 240 (95% CI: 114, 404) respiratory, 68 (95% CI: -10, 159) cardiovascular, and 45 (95% CI: 18, 81) asthma hospital admissions, with 56% of admissions occurring in the Bay Area. Although differences between impact assessment methods are not statistically significant, the admissions estimates' magnitude is particularly sensitive to the CRF specified while the uncertainty is most sensitive to estimates of fire-originated PM2.5. Not accounting for the exposure surface's uncertainty leads to an underestimation of the uncertainty of the health impacts estimated. Employing context-specific CRFs and using accurate exposure estimates that combine multiple data sets generates more certain estimates of the acute health impacts of wildfires.
Sponsoring Organization:
National Aeronautics and Space Administration; National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health; USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES). Chemical Sciences, Geosciences & Biosciences Division
Grant/Contract Number:
SC0014664
OSTI ID:
1816690
Journal Information:
GeoHealth, Journal Name: GeoHealth Journal Issue: 7 Vol. 5; ISSN 2471-1403
Publisher:
American Geophysical Union - WileyCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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Related Subjects

58 GEOSCIENCES
air pollution
fine particulate matter
health impact assessment
health impacts
population exposure
wildfire smoke