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. 2024 Aug 23:8:100540.
doi: 10.1016/j.puhip.2024.100540. eCollection 2024 Dec.

A case-crossover analysis to quantify the impact of wildfire smoke on hospital respiratory admissions in the Rogue Valley, Oregon

A Lee Mitchell  1 , Kyle Chapman  2 , Kerry Farris  3 , Pooya Naderi  1 , Ashley Hansen  1
Affiliations

A case-crossover analysis to quantify the impact of wildfire smoke on hospital respiratory admissions in the Rogue Valley, Oregon

A Lee Mitchell et al. Public Health Pract (Oxf). .

Abstract

Background: With the increasing prevalence of wildfire smoke in the Pacific Northwest, it is important to quantify health impacts to plan for adequate health services. The Rogue Valley region has historically faced some of the greatest wildfire threats in the state. Health impacts from smoke have been estimated in several recent studies that include Oregon's Rogue Valley, but the results between studies are conflicting.

Objective: The objective is to critically examine impacts of wildfire smoke on health in the Rogue Valley area and translate the results to support hospital staffing decisions.

Study design: The study adopts a case-crossover approach.

Methods: Apply a conditional Poisson regression to analyze time stratified counts while controlling for mean temperature.

Results: Every 10 μ/m3 increase in PM2.5 is associated with a 2% increase in same-day hospital or emergency room admission rates for respiratory conditions during fire season after adjusting for temperature and time (OR = 1.020; 95% CI: 1.004-1.034); a 10 μ/m3 increase in PM2.5 lasting nine days is associated with a 4% increase in admission rates (OR = 1.041; 95% CI: 1.018-1.065). In other words, for each 10 μ/m3 single day increase in pollution from smoke, an additional 0.26 respiratory patients would be expected in the area hospitals. With a single day increase from 10 μ/m3 to 150 μ/m3, hospitals could expect an additional four patients.

Conclusions: There are small but significant health impacts in the Rogue Valley. These impacts are smaller than some statewide estimates. We need further research to understand these differences.

Keywords: Air quality; Hospital planning; Oregon; PM2.5; Respiratory health; Rogue valley; Wildfires.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Five counties in Oregon with the highest rates of tree cover loss from 2001 to 2022 due to wildfire compared to the location of the study area.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Map of study area with monitor locations and zip code boundaries in Josephine and Jackson County, Oregon.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Minimum, average, and maximum PM2.5 concentrations per lag interval.
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Patient count and daily average PM2.5 concentrations during fire season from 2016 through 2019.
Fig. 5
Fig. 5
PM2.5 odds ratios with confidence intervals for each lag period.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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