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Tag: wildfire

Effects of Outdoor Wildfire PM2.5 on Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementia

Written by Julia Shipman on . Posted in Extreme Weather, Thematic Areas.

Effects of Outdoor Wildfire PM2.5 on Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementia

Investigators:

Jennifer Stowell, Chad Milando, and Greg Wellenius

Funding:

NIA R61AG086854 (CACHE)

Data sources:

Measures:

  • Health Measures: AD/ADRD ED visits and hospitalizations will be identified using the International Classification of Diseases versions 9 and 10.
  • Aging Measures: Age of event is recorded for all patients, and the analysis is restricted to persons aged at least 40 years.
  • Climate Measures: Daily WFS-specific PM2.5, heat, and relative humidity will allow us to examine un-biased associations between wildfire smoke and AD/ADRD. Meteorology will include multiple measures of temperature (i.e. absolute, heat index, wet bulb globe, etc.).

Project Summary:

We will examine the impact of exposure to WFS-specific PM2.5 on emergency department visits and hospitalizations for incident AD/ADRD or exacerbations of AD/. We will link population-weighted exposure, meteorology, and demographic variables to AD/ADRD events across the contiguous US for 2006-2023 using a large medical claims dataset. We will accomplish this using distributed lag nonlinear models (DLNM) and conditional Poisson regression. We will explore multiple lag lengths to account for delays in exposure effects. These analyses will be conducted using a case-control study design where each case is matched to non-case days within the same month, year, and on the same day of the week. This design inherently controls for all time invariant confounders, and all models will include terms for confounding variables such as temperature, relative humidity, and holidays. We will repeat our analyses stratifying on measures of individual and community-level social determinants of health (SDOH) using age, sex, and select ACS variables.

This research will help to increase our understanding of the environmental factors associated with AD/ADRD. Our results will provide actionable evidence for public health practitioners, clinicians, and policymakers in future efforts to mitigate the impacts of climate change on AD/ADRD. Our future research will build on these results and inform an R01 proposal to examine the potential synergistic impacts of multiple extreme weather events (i.e. wildfire, drought, heat, etc.) and mixtures of pollutants on AD/ADRD in US adults.

Outputs:

  • Poster presentations
  • Grant proposal
  • Code
  • Future publications

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What Am I Watching? Understanding the Health Impacts of Wildfire Smoke Exposure

Written by Julia Shipman on . Posted in Other, Thematic Areas, What Am I Reading?.

What am I Watching? Understanding the health impacts of wildfire smoke exposure

Link to video recording

If you’re interested in contributing a short What Am I Reading post, we’d love to hear from you! Email us at cache@colorado.edu.

Written by Elizabeth Sorensen Montoya, Ph.D. University of Colorado Boulder  www.elizabethsorensenmontoya.com

If you live in the Eastern U.S. or the Midwest, you’ve probably spent the last few days breathing in that now-familiar sign of summer: Canadian wildfire smoke. But this isn’t just a North American problem. In recent years, wildfires have become more frequent, more intense, and harder to suppress. Because wildfire smoke can travel long distances, the health impacts often reach far beyond the burn zone.  

So, what does all this smoke actually mean for our health? 
 
As part of the Climate and Health Research Coordinating Center’s (CAFÉ RCC) State of the Science webinar series, Dr. Michael Brauer, professor at the School of Population and Public Health at the University of British Columbia, delivered an excellent talk exploring just that. You can watch the full seminar here. 
 
Below is a quick, high-level overview of some key takeaways from the presentation: 

  • The “new normal”: Wildfires are becoming more frequent, larger, and harder to suppress. Not only that, but they’ve begun to extend beyond what we have traditionally thought of as “fire season”, with smoke events occurring well outside traditional summer months. 
  • Health impacts: The talk covered a wide range of health outcomes linked to wildfire smoke exposure, from respiratory and cardiovascular impacts to emerging evidence on effects like dementia, reduced cognitive performance, and ambulance dispatches. A particularly interesting piece of the talk focused on recent research into the delayed impacts of wildfire smoke. For example, one study by Landguth and colleagues shows that smoke exposure during the summer can increase the risk of flu during the following winter.  
  • Looking ahead: Dr. Brauer talked about how wildfire smoke could change in the years to come, not only as a result of climate change but also our response to it. 
  • What can be done? Dr. Brauer ended the talk by outlining several approaches for reducing exposure, from individual-level interventions to community-level planning and preemptive actions.  

The seminar is well worth watching in full. Dr. Brauer does a fantastic job of weaving together scientific evidence, real-world case studies, and forward-looking perspectives.  

As wildfires continue to affect communities around the world, it’s increasingly important to understand the health risks and how we might reduce them. Dr. Brauer’s talk is a great starting point for those curious about wildfire smoke and health and a valuable resource for those already working in that field.    

 

 

References: 

Brauer, M. (2024) Understanding the health impacts of wildfire smoke exposure. Presented as part of the CAFÉ RCC State of the Science webinar series, 15 May. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CViMQ-Xjuo 

Landguth, E.L., Holden, Z.A., Graham, J., Stark, B., Mokhtari, E.B., Kaleczyc, E., Anderson, S., Urbanski, S., Jolly, M., Semmens, E.O. and Warren, D.A., 2020. The delayed effect of wildfire season particulate matter on subsequent influenza season in a mountain west region of the USA. Environment international, 139, p.105668. 

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