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An Evaluation of the British Columbia Asthma Monitoring System (BCAMS) and PM(2.5) Exposure Metrics during the 2014 Forest Fire Season
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 BCAM...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
MDPI
2015
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4483726/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26075727 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph120606710 |
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author | McLean, Kathleen E. Yao, Jiayun Henderson, Sarah B. |
author_facet | McLean, Kathleen E. Yao, Jiayun Henderson, Sarah B. |
author_sort | McLean, Kathleen E. |
collection | PubMed |
description | 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 (PM(2.5)) were used to assess exposure. We assigned PM(2.5) 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 PM(2.5) levels ≥ 25 µg/m(3). Most excursions (57%–71%) were assigned measured or modeled PM(2.5) concentrations of 10 µg/m(3) 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. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4483726 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2015 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-44837262015-06-30 An Evaluation of the British Columbia Asthma Monitoring System (BCAMS) and PM(2.5) Exposure Metrics during the 2014 Forest Fire Season McLean, Kathleen E. Yao, Jiayun Henderson, Sarah B. Int J Environ Res Public Health Article 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 (PM(2.5)) were used to assess exposure. We assigned PM(2.5) 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 PM(2.5) levels ≥ 25 µg/m(3). Most excursions (57%–71%) were assigned measured or modeled PM(2.5) concentrations of 10 µg/m(3) 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. MDPI 2015-06-12 2015-06 /pmc/articles/PMC4483726/ /pubmed/26075727 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph120606710 Text en © 2015 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
spellingShingle | Article McLean, Kathleen E. Yao, Jiayun Henderson, Sarah B. An Evaluation of the British Columbia Asthma Monitoring System (BCAMS) and PM(2.5) Exposure Metrics during the 2014 Forest Fire Season |
title | An Evaluation of the British Columbia Asthma Monitoring System (BCAMS) and PM(2.5) Exposure Metrics during the 2014 Forest Fire Season |
title_full | An Evaluation of the British Columbia Asthma Monitoring System (BCAMS) and PM(2.5) Exposure Metrics during the 2014 Forest Fire Season |
title_fullStr | An Evaluation of the British Columbia Asthma Monitoring System (BCAMS) and PM(2.5) Exposure Metrics during the 2014 Forest Fire Season |
title_full_unstemmed | An Evaluation of the British Columbia Asthma Monitoring System (BCAMS) and PM(2.5) Exposure Metrics during the 2014 Forest Fire Season |
title_short | An Evaluation of the British Columbia Asthma Monitoring System (BCAMS) and PM(2.5) Exposure Metrics during the 2014 Forest Fire Season |
title_sort | evaluation of the british columbia asthma monitoring system (bcams) and pm(2.5) exposure metrics during the 2014 forest fire season |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4483726/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26075727 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph120606710 |
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