- Title
- The impact of prolonged landscape fire smoke exposure on women with asthma in Australia
- Creator
- Beyene, Tesfalidet; Murphy, Vanessa E.; Jegasothy, Edward; Hanigan, Ivan; Mattes, Joerg; Collison, Adam M.; Jensen, Megan E.; Gibson, Peter G.; McDonald, Vanessa M.; Van Buskirk, Joe; Holliday, Elizabeth G.; Vertigan, Anne E.; Horvat, Jay C.; Zosky, Graeme R.; Morgan, Geoffrey G.
- Relation
- BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth Vol. 22, Issue 1
- Publisher Link
- http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12884-022-05231-8
- Publisher
- BioMed Central
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2022
- Description
- Background: Little is known about the physical and mental health impact of exposure to landscape fire smoke in women with asthma. This study examined the health impacts and information-seeking behaviours of women with asthma exposed to the 2019/2020 Australian fires, including women who were pregnant. Methods: Women with asthma were recruited from the Breathing for Life Trial in Australia. Following the landscape fire exposure period, self-reported data were collected regarding symptoms (respiratory and non-respiratory), asthma exacerbations, wellbeing, quality of life, information seeking, and landscape fire smoke exposure mitigation strategies. Participants’ primary residential location and fixed site monitoring was used to geolocate and estimate exposure to landscape fire-related fine Particulate Matter (PM2.5). Results: The survey was completed by 81 pregnant, 70 breastfeeding and 232 non-pregnant and non-breastfeeding women with asthma. Participants had a median daily average of 17 μg/m3 PM2.5 and 105 μg/m3 peak PM2.5 exposure over the fire period (October 2019 to February 2020). Over 80% of participants reported non-respiratory and respiratory symptoms during the fire period and 41% reported persistent symptoms. Over 82% reported asthma symptoms and exacerbations of asthma during the fire period. Half the participants sought advice from a health professional for their symptoms. Most (97%) kept windows/doors shut when inside and 94% stayed indoors to minimise exposure to landscape fire smoke. Over two in five (43%) participants reported that their capacity to participate in usual activities was reduced due to prolonged smoke exposure during the fire period. Participants reported greater anxiety during the fire period than after the fire period (mean (SD) = 53(13) versus 39 (13); p < 0.001). Two in five (38%) pregnant participants reported having concerns about the effect of fire events on their pregnancy. Conclusion: Prolonged landscape fire smoke exposure during the 2019/2020 Australian fire period had a significant impact on the health and wellbeing of women with asthma, including pregnant women with asthma. This was despite most women taking actions to minimise exposure to landscape fire smoke. Effective and consistent public health messaging is needed during landscape fire events to guard the health of women with asthma.
- Subject
- asthma; Australia; landscape fire; bushfire; mental health; pregnant and/or breastfeeding women; SDG 3; Sustainable Development Goals
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1482244
- Identifier
- uon:50895
- Identifier
- ISSN:1471-2393
- Rights
- © Crown 2022. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/ publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
- Language
- eng
- Full Text
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