Wildfire Smoke and Health Risk Communication Workshop: Workshop Report, March10th, 2017
Citation:
Rappold, A., C. Baghdikian, S. Stone, K. Schulte, K. Elstein, B. Hubbell, AND K. Rappazzo. Wildfire Smoke and Health Risk Communication Workshop: Workshop Report, March10th, 2017. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC, EPA/600/R-17/076, 2017.
Impact/Purpose:
This report summarizes in detail, the activities and discussions during the EPA sponsored workshop titled “Wildfire Smoke and Health Risk Communication: Integrating Social and Natural Sciences to Improve Risk Communication and Management Strategies in Impacted Communities.” In addition to the report, the workshop organizing team will present results and lessons learned to wider audience during conferences, post-workshop webinars and prepare one or more journal articles. The team will also prepare a journal article focused on the workshop process as a framework to be considered for other environmental topics. Additionally, the team delivered an overview to EPA’s Air, Climate, and Energy National Program Board of Scientific Councilors Subcommittee. The organizing team is also considering options for an online repository for successful wildland fire smoke risk communication materials.
Description:
The EPA’s ACE research program and Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards (OAQPS) co-sponsored a “Wildfire Smoke Health Risk Management and Communication Workshop” with the goal to identify opportunities for research and technological solutions that could improve health-risk communication strategies, increase health-protective behaviors, and reduce the public health burden during wildfire smoke episodes. We designed the workshop to engage participants in interdisciplinary problem formulation and to develop a shared and multidimensional understanding of 1) the nature of the public health problem associated with smoke exposures that reflects community attributes and experiences, and 2) what types of information and actions related to health risk communication and management might be appropriate for scientific evaluation. This workshop piloted an interdisciplinary and multi-stakeholder social-environmental research problem formulation approach to improve understanding of knowledge gaps and generate ideas to meet the workshop objective.