Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Aug 1;6(8):e2022GH000642.
doi: 10.1029/2022GH000642. eCollection 2022 Aug.

Dust Storms, Valley Fever, and Public Awareness

Daniel Q Tong  1 , Morgan E Gorris  2 , Thomas E Gill  3 , Karin Ardon-Dryer  4 , Julian Wang  1 , Ling Ren  1
Affiliations

Dust Storms, Valley Fever, and Public Awareness

Daniel Q Tong et al. Geohealth. .

Abstract

We discuss several issues raised by Comrie (2021, https://doi.org/10.1029/2021GH000504), which uses a crowdsourced data set to study dust storms and coccidioidomycosis (Valley fever). There is inconsistency in the term "dust storm" used by science communities. The dust data from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Storm Events Database are from diverse sources, unsuitable for assessing dust-coccidioidomycosis relationships. Population exposure to dust or Coccidioides needs to consider the frequency, magnitude, and duration of dust events. Given abundant evidence that dust storms are a viable driver to transport pathogens, it is in best public interest to advocate dust storms may put people at risk for contracting Valley fever.

Keywords: Valley fever; coccidioidomycosis; dust; environmental.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest relevant to this study.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Data sources of reported dust events in the Storm Events Database (NCEI, 2022) from 2006 to 2018 that were used in Comrie (2021) work. ASOS is Automated Surface Observing Systems, AWOS is Automated Weather Observing System, and unknown are unidentified reporting sources.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. ADHS–Arizona Department of Health Services . (2018). Valley Fever 2017 annual report. Retrieved from https://www.azdhs.gov/preparedness/epidemiology%2Ddisease%2Dcontrol/vall...
    1. Ardon‐Dryer, K. , Sandhu, T. , & Kelley, M. (2021). Classification of dust storms in Phoenix AZ and their implication on air quality. Southern Arizona dust workshop. March 24, 2021. Retrieved from http://www.weather.gov/media/psr/Dust/2021/Dryer.pdf
    1. Ashley, W. S. , & Black, A. W. (2008). Fatalities associated with nonconvective high‐wind events in the United States. Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology, 47(2), 717–725. 10.1175/2007jamc1689.1 - DOI
    1. Ashley, W. S. , & Gilson, C. W. (2009). A reassessment of US lightning mortality. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 90(10), 1501–1518. 10.1175/2009bams2765.1 - DOI
    1. Barker, B. M. , Litvintseva, A. P. , Riquelme, M. , & Vargas‐Gastélum, L. (2019). Coccidioides ecology and genomics. Medical Mycology, 57(Supplement 1), S21–S29. 10.1093/mmy/myy051 - DOI - PMC - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources