HEI Australian Wildfires and Perinatal Health Risks
The unprecedented 2019-2020 wildfire season in Australia resulted in a declared state of emergency as bushfires (the Australian term for wildfires) burned ~5.8 million hectares, and nearby communities repeatedly experienced extreme levels of smoke. Extreme fire episodes will occur with higher frequency across Australia under climate change, as warmer temperatures lead to drier, more flammable conditions. Research on health burdens of wildfire smoke is limited, but existing evidence indicates impacts from short-term exposure, such as for hospital admissions. Evidence for a consistent association between wildfire smoke and adverse pregnancy outcomes remains understudied. Ambient particles from other typically urban sources have well-documented associations with birth outcomes. However, research including many HEI studies also show that the chemical composition of particles influences health consequences, indicating that risk estimates likely differ for wildfire PM2.5 versus PM2.5 total mass. To date, much of the literature has focused on a single fire episode and relatively small population. Other studies attempting to quantify long-term health impacts of smoke relied on concentration-response relationships for PM2.5 total mass, not wildfire-specific PM2.5. Our long-term goal is to develop the methods and scientific evidence to estimate the health burden of wildfires, including for sensitive subpopulations, and to develop advanced fire modelling approaches for this work, thereby laying the foundation for related future research. To achieve these goals, we must address critical research needs for the topic of wildfires. Specifically, novel methodologies are needed to estimate how populations are exposed to wildfire smoke for locations and time periods without monitors, and to disentangle PM2.5 from wildfires from that of other sources. One key method to estimate exposure is advanced fire modelling; however, this itself requires innovation as improvements are needed in fire modelling systems.
Our innovative exposure methodology, estimating wildfire-specific PM2.5 throughout the continent, will allow us to identify exposure gradients and health outcomes that are otherwise obscured through use of traditional monitor-based approaches.
This project is funded through a grant from the Health Effects Institute (RFA 20-1 Health Effects of Air Pollution).
