AAAR 37th Annual Conference October 14 - October 18, 2019 Oregon Convention Center Portland, Oregon, USA
Abstract View
Improving Smoke Exposure Assessment for Surveillance and Epidemiology in British Columbia, Canada
SARAH HENDERSON, British Columbia Centre for Disease Control
Abstract Number: 79 Working Group: Biomass Combustion: Emissions, Chemistry, Air Quality, Climate, and Human Health
Abstract Smoke from biomass burning is one of the most important sources of air pollution in the Canadian province of British Columbia (BC). In winter, many coastal, northern, and alpine communities are affected by emissions from residential wood-burning appliances. In summer, annual wildfire activity leads to more extreme and unpredictable smoke exposures across the entire province and beyond. More recently, the unprecedented 2017 and 2018 wildfire seasons lasted for several weeks and blanketed most of western Canada in smoke for extended periods.
While emissions from other sources such as traffic and industry have been decreasing in BC, emissions from residential wood-burning and wildfire smoke have been increasing over the past decade. This reality makes it critically important for the public health sector to understand the short- and long-term impacts of biomass smoke exposures. The BC Centre for Disease Control (BCCDC) has been developing a range of tools to assess these smoke exposures and their effects on the health of different populations.
Mobile monitoring in communities affected by residential woodsmoke allows for detailed mapping of the air quality impacts. While such campaigns can be expensive and time-consuming for specific research groups to undertake, citizen scientists are often willing to do the work with guidance and support from more experienced investigators. The first part of this talk will cover tools that the BCCDC has developed for citizen science mapping of residential woodsmoke exposures.
Wildfire smoke pollution is dynamic in both space and time, making it challenging to understand exposures based solely on the data from regulatory monitoring networks. The Optimized Statistical Smoke Exposure Model (OSSEM) integrates data from multiple remote sensing sources to map 1-hour smoke exposures across BC. The second part of this talk will cover the relationship between OSSEM estimates and cardiorespiratory ambulance dispatches.