Wildfire Smoke: A Silent Threat to Heart and Lung Health

Wildfire smoke exposure increases the risk of heart and lung ailments, leading to more medical visits.

Wildfire smoke is recognized for its role in worsening health issues such as heart disease, lung conditions, and asthma. However, a recent study reveals that the effects of this smoke can impact health even thousands of miles away. ()

Researchers have discovered that medical visits for heart and lung ailments increased by nearly 20 percent over a six-day period in June 2023, coinciding with the drift of smoke from Western Canadian wildfires across the country, which resulted in extremely poor air quality in Baltimore and its surrounding areas.

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The new findings were published in the journal JAMA Network Open.

During the summer of 2023, severe Canadian wildfires created a vast plume that drifted 2000 miles across the country, leading to poor air quality on the East Coast of the United States, and many individuals experiencing breathing issues that led them to the doctor’s office.

“Baltimore had very dark skies, and we could all smell the smoke in the air,” said Mary Maldarelli, MD, pulmonary critical care fellow at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) who is the first author on the study. “But most importantly, my patients came in to me saying they were coughing quite a bit more and needed their medications more often, so they felt much sicker than they usually did when these wildfires occurred.” Dr. Maldarelli is also a resident in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at the University of Maryland Medical Center.

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To determine whether the smoke-filled days led to quantifiable health consequences, she partnered with data scientists and visualization experts at the UM-IHC, which has access to nearly 2 million de-identified patient records from the University of Maryland Medical System (UMMS).

The Impact of Wildfire Smoke on Maryland Health

The researchers analyzed satellite data and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) data to identify six “hotspot” days in June 2023 with high levels of wildfire smoke-related air pollution in the Maryland area. These were days that exceeded the EPA’s standards for safe air quality in all 23 counties in Maryland.

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The team then culled through the de-identified electronic health records from UMMS, comparing medical visits for heart-lung or cardiopulmonary conditions from June 2023 with medical visits during June 2018 and June 2019. These included emergency department visits, hospital admissions, and outpatient clinic visits.

“We also found a 55 percent increase in the risk for an outpatient visit for heart and lung conditions; these patients tended to be older, non-smokers, and more socio-economically affluent than typical patients who see their doctors for cardiovascular conditions on good air quality days.”

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That finding could highlight the importance of healthcare access and may indicate that more economically disadvantaged patients are not getting the medical care they need on high-risk days filled with wildfire smoke.

With more climate events expected in the future, doctors may require better tools to help disadvantaged patients on hotspot days.

“We have the opportunity to leverage the capabilities of the UM-IHC to proactively identify patients who are most at risk and provide them with anticipatory care,” said UMSOM Dean Mark T. Gladwin, MD, who is the John Z. and Akiko K. Bowers Distinguished Professor and vice president for medical affairs at the University of Maryland, Baltimore. “There may be crucial ways we can prevent cardiovascular complications on polluted smoke air days simply by providing them with telehealth visits or other ways to access care.”

Reference:

Polluted Air from Canadian Wildfires and Cardiopulmonary - (https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2828029https://www.aging-us.com/article/205776/text)

Source-Eurekalert