Wildland Fire and Smoke: EPA Supported Tools and Research. Finding Solutions to Protect Public Health
Citation:
Cascio, W. Wildland Fire and Smoke: EPA Supported Tools and Research. Finding Solutions to Protect Public Health. County, State and Territorial Epidemiologists Workgroup, Research Triangle Park, NC, December 04, 2018.
Impact/Purpose:
Wildland fire research within ORD focuses on: (1) exploring new ways to integrate social and natural science perspectives to reduce risks from wildland fires; (2) advancing measurement and predictive tools and models to estimate air quality impacts; (3) investigating opportunities to better understand, manage, and communicate public health risks. The expected value of this presentation and its impact is expected to be an increased awareness among public health officials in the US states of the active research ORD is doing to provide new information that aims to help them carry out their mission of protecting the public from wildfire emissions, and to stimulate opportunity for cooperation and collaboration
Description:
The presentation will broadly describe EPA tools and research dedicated to the protection of public health from the adverse effects of air pollution, and the study of wildfires emissions, and their impacts on air quality and health effects. However, the principle focus of the presentation will be to describe the purpose and utility the Air Quality Index and the Smoke Sense smart phone app as tools to protect public health. There is a gap between the recommended actions and what we think individuals do to protect their health during a wildfire. The citizen science project Smoke Sense promotes issue engagement and education that aims to: foster personal connection between changes in the environment and our health; raise personal awareness about the salience of changing behavior during smoke; increase knowledge-base about health effects of smoke and risk communication. ORD researchers developed the mobile application available for Android and iPhone called Smoke Sense App for people impacted by wildfire smoke to: get information on local air quality; learn about ways to protect their health from smoke exposure; describe how ORD is working with Regions to solicit potential State/local partners to pilot use of this app.