Citation

Dennekamp M, Straney LD, Erbas B, Abramson MJ, Keywood M, Smith K, Sim MR, Glass DC, Del Monaco A, Haikerwal A, Tonkin AM. Environ. Health Perspect. 2015; 123(10): 959-964.

Affiliation

Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2015, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences)

DOI

10.1289/ehp.1408436

PMID

25794411

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Millions of people can potentially be exposed to smoke from forest fires, making this an important public health problem in many counties.

OBJECTIVE: This study aims to measure the association between out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) and forest fire smoke exposures in a large city during a severe forest fire season, and estimate the excess OHCA due to the fire smoke.

METHODS: The association between particulate matter (PM) and other air pollutants and OHCA was investigated using a case-crossover study of adults (>35 years) in Melbourne, Australia. Conditional logistic regression models were used to derive estimates of the percent change in the rate of OHCA associated with an IQR increase in exposure. From July 2006 to June 2007 OHCA data were collected from the Victorian Ambulance Cardiac Arrest Registry. Hourly air pollution concentrations and meteorological data were obtained from a central monitoring site.

RESULTS: There were 2046 OHCAs with presumed cardiac aetiology in our study period. Among men during the fire season, greater increases in OHCA were observed with interquartile increases in the 48-hour lagged PM2.5 (8.05%; 95%CI: 2.30, 14.13%; IQR=6.1 µg/m(3)), PM10 (11.1%; 95%CI: 1.55, 21.48%; 13.7 µg/m(3)), and CO (35.7%; 95%CI: 8.98, 68.92%; 0.3 ppm). There was no significant association between the rate of OHCA and air pollutants among women. 174 'fire-hours' (i.e. hours in which Melbourne's air quality was affected by forest fire smoke) were identified during 12 days of the 2006/2007 fire season and 23.9 (95%CI: 3.1, 40.2) excess OHCA were estimated to occur due to elevations in PM2.5 during these 'fire-hours'.

CONCLUSIONS: This study found an association between exposure to forest fire smoke and an increased in the rate of OHCA. These findings have implications for public health messages to raise community awareness and for planning of emergency services during forest fire seasons.

Language: en