Health Outcomes

• Multiple

Health Outcome List:

• Respiratory outcomes (asthma, bronchitis, bronchiolitis, COPD, pneumonia)
• mortality (premature mortality)

Environmental Agents

List of Environmental Agents:

• Single

Source of Environmental Agents:

• Wildfires

Economic Evaluation / Methods and Source

Type:

• Cost-benefit analysis (CBA)

Cost Measures:

• Cost of interventions (HVAC incremental energy cost, HVAC incremental filter cost, portable filter energy cost, portable filter equipment cost)

Potential Cost Measures:

• Not available

Benefits Measures:

• Prevented respiratory hospital admissions and deaths

Potential Benefits Measures:

• Reduced post-wildfire hospital admissions
• reduced hospital admissions or deaths due to health effects from other wildfire-related air pollutants (e.g., nitrogen oxides and aldehydes)

Location:

• Six-county region in Southern California with substantially increased particle concentrations during wildfires in 2003

Models Used:

• Not available

Models References:

• Not available

Methods Used:

• The authors estimated the magnitude of reduced hospital admissions and premature deaths for hypothetical intervention scenarios implemented during a Southern California wildfire in 2003. The authors — 1) used mass balance models, inhalation rate calculations, and published data from the wildfire event to estimate reductions in hospital admissions and premature deaths associated with six intervention types; 2) calculated the economic value of prevented hospital admissions and deaths and the costs of each intervention; and 3) performed these calculations both for the total population of the affected area and a portion of the population ≥65 years.

Sources Used:

• The relationship of respiratory and cardiovascular hospital admissions to the southern California wildfires of 2003 (Delfino et al., 2009); valuing mortality impacts of smoke exposure from major southern California wildfires (Kochi et al., 2012); County-level population data for 2000 (US Census Bureau); Statistical abstract of the United States - 2012 (US Census Bureau, 2012); additional sources cited in publication

Economic Citation / Fundings

Citation:

• Fisk WJ, Chan WR. Health benefits and costs of filtration interventions that reduce indoor exposure to PM2.5 during wildfires. Indoor Air. 2017. 27; 1.
• Pubmed
• DOI

NIEHS Funding:

• Not available

Other Funding:

• Funded through interagency agreement DW-89-92337001 between the Indoor Environments Division, Office of Radiation and Indoor Air of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the US Department of Energy under contract DE-AC02-05CH11231