UCI Public Health
Newswise — Findings from a study led by University of California, Irvine suggest that communities with a high frequency of high temperature and PM2.5 concentrations (fine inhalable particles) had elevated proportions of low-income residents, lower proportions of high-income residents, as well as lower median household incomes and home values.
To understand the implications that California wildfires have on environmental justice, corresponding author Shahir Masri, ScD, a research specialist in air pollution exposure assessment and epidemiology at the UCI Program in Public Health, collaborated with peers at the University of California, Davis to publish a study in Climate.
California has been among the hardest hit by wildfires, with over half of the state’s top 20 largest wildfires occurring in just the last decade. Of its six largest wildfires, five occurred in just two months in 2020, including the record-breaking August Complex Fire that burned over 1 million acres, more than doubling the area burned by California’s former 2018 record holder (Mendocino Complex Fire).
Compound risk days, or CR days, are characterized by both high temperature and PM2.5 concentrations at the community level to identify the most highly impacted communities. Researchers compared demographics, temperature, PM2.5 levels and wildfire data across California between 2018 and 2020 to determine the compounding health threat facing our communities. A key finding of our study was that PM2.5 pollution and the occurrence of CR days in California appeared strongly influenced by wildfire events during the study period.
“Among low-income households, many lack computers and even internet, rendering them less able to become informed about, and therefore prepare for an approaching wildfire or smoke plume. Importantly, prior research shows that online social media platforms can act as useful tools of rapid on-the-ground citizen reporting and dissemination of disaster information. In some cases, such platforms publish news before traditional media channels,” says Masri. “Policymakers and government agencies that preside over the allocation of state resources must be aware of this when considering paths toward empowering residents and establishing climate resilient communities”.
These findings are crucial as they underscore the potential for disproportionate health impacts relating to the compounding effects of heat stress and air pollution exposure among vulnerable and socioeconomically disadvantaged communities.
Additional authors include Jun Wu, PhD, professor of environmental and occupational health of the UCI Program in Public Health and Yufang Jin, PhD, from the UC Davis Department of Land, Air, and Water Resources.
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