Asthma and Air Quality in the Presence of Fires - A Foundation for Public Health Policy in Florida

Outdoor air quality and its associated impacts on respiratory problems in Florida are of public health significance. Air quality in Florida can be poor during the extended wildfire season, threatening persons with compromised respiratory systems each year. Studies have demonstrated that particulate matter, which is generally elevated in the vicinity of wildfires, is associated with increases in hospital admissions and occurrences of acute asthma exacerbations. However, few studies have examined the modifying effect of socio-demographic characteristics of cities or regional areas on the relationship between air quality and health outcomes. In an ongoing university/multi-agency project, asthma hospital/emergency room (patient) data are being used to create a health outcome indicator of human response to environmental air quality. Environmental data are derived from satellite measurements, with special attention being given to the effect of wildfires and prescribed burns on air quality. This presentation will focus on the environmental data sets particulate matter, location of fires, smoke plumes that are being collected and processed for linkage with health data. After this linkage has been performed, space-time models of asthma rates as a function of air quality data and socio-demographic variables will be developed and validated. The Florida Department of Health (FDOH) will work with county health department staff and representatives from the medical community to establish a protocol with triggers for issuing public health advisories/alerts based on the developed and validated health outcome indicators. From this effort, a science-based policy for issuing public health advisories/alerts for asthma relating to air quality will be developed, giving FDOH the ability to (1) predict, with stated levels of uncertainty, case load of hospital admissions based on air quality, (2) reduce asthma exacerbations by forewarning asthmatics to limit outside activities on poor air quality days, (3) apply management practices on the rates of hospital/emergency room visits for asthma, and (4) provide information that would help translate interventions into policy decisions, thereby reducing the economic burden and increasing well being of asthmatics. Further, the results of the study will be incorporated into Florida s Environmental Public Health Tracking (EPHT) program, which is part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC's) EPHT network

Developing an Impact Assessment of Local Air Quality as a Result of Biomass Burns

Thesis (Master's)--University of Washington, 2016-03Forest operations in the Pacific Northwest produce a large amount of harvest residues, known as harvest slash, commonly collected, piled and burned in prescribed fires. These prescribed slash burns provide a source of emissions, which affect local and regional air quality with potential negative impacts on human health. While most environmental assessments of biofuels are focused on the impact on global warming, very few studies have considered the impact on local air quality related to human health impacts as a result of slash pile burning. Alternative solutions have been proposed to recover woody biomass residues for the production of biofuels. The aim of this study is to calculate the avoided impact on human health as a result of recovering biomass instead of burning it in prescribed fires. The thesis project is structured in five main sections: i) evaluation of biomass supply, through the Washington State Biomass Calculator; ii) piles modeling, including sizes, shapes and distributions; iii) calculation of slash pile emissions through Bluesky Playground online tool; iv) evaluation of pollutants concentrations in air, based on AIRPACT chemical transport and interaction models, and v) calculation of the potential human intake and impacted populations and comparison of the concentrations with the EPA and WHO air quality standards. The area of study is represented by three timbersheds in Southwestern Washington and the burn period is 29 days. The results show a deterioration in air quality in the direct vicinity of the pile burns mainly caused by PM2.5 and PM10. On some of the burn days, depending on the amount of slash burned and the weather conditions, particulate matter emitted from the slash burns, travel great distances away from the burn locations reaching densely populated areas such as Seattle and Tacoma, in addition to impacting smaller communities. The results also demonstrate, that as a result of the pile burns the particulate matter concentrations in the air exceeded critical air quality thresholds on some of the days, surpassing EPA’s “very unhealthy” air quality standards. Additionally, results show that existing poor air quality and specific weather conditions significantly contributed to deterioration of the air quality, as a result of slash burns. On a day with poor weather conditions, the air pollution resulting from similar volume of slash pile burns can get magnified several times, leading to 10 to 100 times increase in adverse human health impact

Life Cycle Analysis of Residual Woody Biomass-Based Biofuel

This report describes the environmental implications of feedstock recovery, production, and utilization of residual woody biomass based biojet fuel