Repeating cardiopulmonary health effects in rural North Carolina population during a second large peat wildfire

Public Deposited
Analytics

Downloadable Content

Download PDF
Request Version for Screen Reader
Creator
  • Tinling, Melissa A
    • Other Affiliation: North Carolina State University
  • West, J. Jason
    • Affiliation: Gillings School of Global Public Health, Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering
  • Cascio, Wayne E
    • Other Affiliation: United States Environmental Protection Agency
  • Kilaru, Vasu
    • Other Affiliation: United States Environmental Protection Agency
  • Rappold, Ana G
    • Other Affiliation: United States Environmental Protection Agency
Abstract
  • Background Cardiovascular health effects of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) exposure from wildfire smoke are neither definitive nor consistent with PM2.5 from other air pollution sources. Non-comparability among wildfire health studies limits research conclusions. Methods We examined cardiovascular and respiratory health outcomes related to peat wildfire smoke exposure in a population where strong associations were previously reported for the 2008 Evans Road peat wildfire. We conducted a population-based epidemiologic investigation of associations between daily county-level modeled wildfire PM2.5 and cardiopulmonary emergency department (ED) visits during the 2011 Pains Bay wildfire in eastern North Carolina. We estimated changes in the relative risk cumulative over 0–2 lagged days of wildfire PM2.5 exposure using a quasi-Poisson regression model adjusted for weather, weekends, and poverty. Results Relative risk associated with a 10 μg/m3 increase in 24-h PM2.5 was significantly elevated in adults for respiratory/other chest symptoms 1.06 (1.00–1.13), upper respiratory infections 1.13 (1.05–1.22), hypertension 1.05 (1.00–1.09) and ‘all-cause’ cardiac outcomes 1.06 (1.00–1.13) and in youth for respiratory/other chest symptoms 1.18 (1.06–1.33), upper respiratory infections 1.14 (1.04–1.24) and ‘all-cause’ respiratory conditions 1.09 (1.01–1.17). Conclusions Our results replicate evidence for increased risk of cardiovascular outcomes from wildfire PM2.5 and suggest that cardiovascular health should be considered when evaluating the public health burden of wildfire smoke.
Date of publication
DOI
Identifier
Resource type
  • Article
Rights statement
  • In Copyright
Rights holder
  • Tinling et al.
Journal title
  • Environmental Health
Journal volume
  • 15
Journal issue
  • 1
Language
  • English
Bibliographic citation
  • Environmental Health. 2016 Jan 27;15(1):12
Publisher
  • BioMed Central

Relations

Parents:

This work has no parents.

Items

Thumbnail Title Date Uploaded Visibility Actions
file details 12940_2016_article_93.pdf 2019-05-06 Public Download
file details 12940_2016_93_moesm1_esm.docx 2019-05-06 Public Download