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Type: Journal Article
Author(s): Kathleen E. McLean; Jiayun Yao; Sarah B. Henderson
Publication Date: 2015

The British Columbia Asthma Monitoring System (BCAMS) tracks forest fire smoke exposure and asthma-related health outcomes, identifying excursions beyond expected daily counts. Weekly reports during the wildfire season support public health and emergency management decision-making. We evaluated BCAMS by identifying excursions for asthma-related physician visits and dispensations of the reliever medication salbutamol sulfate and examining their corresponding smoke exposures. A disease outbreak detection algorithm identified excursions from 1 July to 31 August 2014. Measured, modeled, and forecasted concentrations of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) were used to assess exposure. We assigned PM2.5 levels to excursions by choosing the highest value within a seven day window centred on the excursion day. Smoky days were defined as those with PM2.5 levels ≥ 25 µg/m3. Most excursions (57%–71%) were assigned measured or modeled PM2.5 concentrations of 10 µg/m3 or higher. Of the smoky days, 55.8% and 69.8% were associated with at least one excursion for physician visits and salbutamol dispensations, respectively. BCAMS alerted most often when measures of smoke exposure were relatively high. Better performance might be realized by combining asthma-related outcome metrics in a bivariate model.

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Citation: McLean, Kathleen E.; Yao, Jiayun; Henderson, Sarah B. 2015. An evaluation of the British Columbia Asthma Monitoring System (BCAMS) and PM2.5 exposure metrics during the 2014 forest fire season. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 12(6):6710-6724.

Cataloging Information

Regions:
Keywords:
  • air quality
  • asthma
  • British Columbia
  • Canada
  • diseases
  • exposure
  • fire management
  • particulates
  • PM - particulate matter
  • PM2.5
  • public health
  • season of fire
  • smoke management
  • wildfires
Tall Timbers Record Number: 31295Location Status: Not in fileCall Number: AvailableAbstract Status: Okay, Fair use, Reproduced by permission
Record Last Modified:
Record Maintained By: FRAMES Staff (https://www.frames.gov/contact)
FRAMES Record Number: 25172

This bibliographic record was either created or modified by Tall Timbers and is provided without charge to promote research and education in Fire Ecology. The E.V. Komarek Fire Ecology Database is the intellectual property of Tall Timbers.