Potential impacts of prescribed fire smoke on public health and socially vulnerable populations in a Southeastern U.S. state

Afrin, Sadia; Garcia–Menendez, Fernando

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.148712

Cited by 33 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 55 publications

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“…COBRA has been used to quantify air quality co-benefits in research applications at various scales and policy evaluations: (Mailloux et al 2022). COBRA has also previously been used to investigate PM 2.5 exposure to socially vulnerable populations from prescribed fire smoke, which includes race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and other demographics (Afrin and Garcia-Menendez 2021).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

U.S. decarbonization impacts on air quality and environmental justice

Gallagher

Holloway

2022

Environ. Res. Lett.

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As policy organizations consider strategies to mitigate climate change, decarbonization initiatives can also reduce health-impacting air pollutants and may affect the associated racial disparities of adverse effects. With the U.S. EPA CO-Benefits Risk Assessment Health Impacts Screening Tool (COBRA), we compare three decarbonization scenarios and their impacts at the regional and county scales. COBRA calculates changes in county-level ambient fine particulate matter (PM2.5), and associated mortality impacts, for each decarbonization scenario. We compare these patterns with demographic data to evaluate the relative exposure reduction benefit across race and ethnicity. Carbon-free electricity would reduce national average ambient PM2.5 concentrations by 0.21 μg/m3, compared with a 0.19 μg/m3 reduction associated with carbon-free industrial activity, and a 0.08 μg/m3 reduction associated with carbon-free light duty vehicle (LDV) transportation. Decarbonization strategies also vary in terms of the racial groups most benefitting from each scenario, due to regional and urban/rural patterns in emission sources and population demographics. Black populations are the only group to experience relative exposure reduction benefits compared to the total population in every scenario, with industrial decarbonization yielding 23% greater reductions in ambient PM2.5 concentrations for Black populations than for the total U.S. population. The largest relative reduction in PM2.5 exposure was found for Asian populations in the carbon-free LDV transportation scenario (53%). The magnitudes of total air quality improvements by scenario vary across regions of the U.S., and generally do not align with the decarbonization policy that achieves the largest equity goal. Only the transportation decarbonization scenario meets the criteria of the Justice40 Initiative nationwide, fulfilling the 2021 commitment by U.S. President Biden that federal investments in clean energy are designed to allocate at least 40% of benefits to disadvantaged communities.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

U.S. decarbonization impacts on air quality and environmental justice

Gallagher

Holloway

2022

Environ. Res. Lett.

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“…However, the use of fire may have limitations in that a weakened host may favor mistletoe regrowth [ 51 , 161 , 162 ]. Moreover, on holistic grounds, fire applications may raise public and environmental health concerns [ 163 , 164 ]. Indirect methods use irrigation, fertilization, brush and weed control, and regulating human disturbances [ 29 , 90 , 165 ].…”

Section: Conventional Control Strategies and Integrated Pest Manageme...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Mitigating the Mistletoe Menace: Biotechnological and Smart Management Approaches

Mudgal

Kaur

Chand

et al. 2022

Biology

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Mistletoes have been considered a keystone resource for biodiversity, as well as a remarkable source of medicinal attributes that attract pharmacologists. Due to their hemiparasitic nature, mistletoes leach water and nutrients, including primary and secondary metabolites, through the vascular systems of their plant hosts, primarily trees. As a result of intense mistletoe infection, the hosts suffer various growth and physiological detriments, which often lead to tree mortality. Because of their easy dispersal and widespread tropism, mistletoes have become serious pests for commercial fruit and timber plantations. A variety of physical and chemical treatment methods, along with silvicultural practices, have shaped conventional mistletoe management. Others, however, have either failed to circumvent the growing range and tropism of these parasitic plants or present significant environmental and public health risks. A biocontrol approach that could sidestep these issues has never achieved full proof of concept in real-field applications. Our review discusses the downsides of conventional mistletoe control techniques and explores the possibilities of biotechnological approaches using biocontrol agents and transgenic technologies. It is possible that smart management options will pave the way for technologically advanced solutions to mitigate mistletoes that are yet to be exploited.

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“…Prescribed fire, like any fire, creates smoke, and smoke is a well known risk factor for various adverse health outcomes (Haikerwal et al 2015;Price et al 2016). Documented health impacts from smoke, whether from wildfire or prescribed burns, include all-cause mortality (Reid et al 2016;Cascio 2018;Afrin and Garcia-Menendez 2021), respiratory diseases (Cascio 2018;Afrin and Garcia-Menendez 2021), asthma exacerbation (Cascio 2018;Huang et al 2019), low birth rate and infant prematurity (Jones and Berrens 2021), and immune responses in children (Prunicki et al 2019).…”

Section: Prescribed Fire and Its Impact On Future Wildfire Emissionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While much progress has been made on understanding the health impacts and costs of smoke exposure from prescribed fire (e.g. Haikerwal et al 2015;Huang et al 2019;Afrin and Garcia-Menendez 2021;Jones and Berrens 2021), there are several continuing questions of interest (see Fig. 2).…”

Section: Health Costs Of Prescribed Firementioning

confidence: 99%

“…One challenge to prescribed fire that has received some limited attention is understanding the human health impacts of smoke exposure (e.g. Gaither et al 2019;Prunicki et al 2019;Jaffe et al 2020;Afrin and Garcia-Menendez 2021). For example, limited comparisons of smoke-related health impacts of wildfires and prescribed fires have found higher health costs per acre burned for prescribed fires compared to wildfires (Navarro et al 2018;Borchers-Arriagada et al 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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More smoke today for less smoke tomorrow? We need to better understand the public health benefits and costs of prescribed fire

Jones

McDermott

Champ

et al. 2022

Int. J. Wildland Fire

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Rapidly scaling up the use of prescribed fire is being promoted as an important pathway for reducing the growing damages of wildfire events in the United States, including limiting the health impacts from smoke emissions. However, we do not currently have the science needed to understand how the health impacts associated with prescribed fire smoke in the present compare to wildfire smoke exposure in the future. In particular, we lack an understanding of how the potential long-term public health benefits of prescribed fire on future wildfire smoke and health impacts compare to prescribed fire’s short-term effects on human health. Answering the question ‘How do we learn to sustainably coexist with wildfire?’ requires a new research agenda investigating the magnitudes and distribution of the health benefits and costs associated with prescribed burning. We suggest three areas for a new research agenda: (1) improved understanding of the health costs of prescribed fire; (2) quantification of the expected health benefits of prescribed fire through possible decreased future wildfire smoke emissions; and (3) better knowledge on the distributional impacts of prescribed fire smoke. We conclude that we need to first learn to sustainably coexist with prescribed fire in order to sustainably coexist with wildfire.

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Potential impacts of prescribed fire smoke on public health and socially vulnerable populations in a Southeastern U.S. state

Cited by 33 publications

References 55 publications

U.S. decarbonization impacts on air quality and environmental justice

U.S. decarbonization impacts on air quality and environmental justice

Mitigating the Mistletoe Menace: Biotechnological and Smart Management Approaches

More smoke today for less smoke tomorrow? We need to better understand the public health benefits and costs of prescribed fire

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