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Disproportionate Impacts of Wildfires among Elderly and Low-Income Communities in California from 2000–2020

Wildfires can be detrimental to urban and rural communities, causing impacts in the form of psychological stress, direct physical injury, and smoke-related morbidity and mortality. This study examined the area burned by wildfires over the entire state of California from the years 2000 to 2020 in ord...

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Autores principales: Masri, Shahir, Scaduto, Erica, Jin, Yufang, Wu, Jun
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8068328/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33917945
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18083921
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author Masri, Shahir
Scaduto, Erica
Jin, Yufang
Wu, Jun
author_facet Masri, Shahir
Scaduto, Erica
Jin, Yufang
Wu, Jun
author_sort Masri, Shahir
collection PubMed
description Wildfires can be detrimental to urban and rural communities, causing impacts in the form of psychological stress, direct physical injury, and smoke-related morbidity and mortality. This study examined the area burned by wildfires over the entire state of California from the years 2000 to 2020 in order to quantify and identify whether burned area and fire frequency differed across Census tracts according to socioeconomic indicators over time. Wildfire data were obtained from the California Fire and Resource Assessment Program (FRAP) and National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC), while demographic data were obtained from the American Community Survey. Results showed a doubling in the number of Census tracts that experienced major wildfires and a near doubling in the number of people residing in wildfire-impacted Census tracts, mostly due to an over 23,000 acre/year increase in the area burned by wildfires over the last two decades. Census tracts with a higher fire frequency and burned area had lower proportions of minority groups on average. However, when considering Native American populations, a greater proportion resided in highly impacted Census tracts. Such Census tracts also had higher proportions of older residents. In general, high-impact Census tracts tended to have higher proportions of low-income residents and lower proportions of high-income residents, as well as lower median household incomes and home values. These findings are important to policymakers and state agencies as it relates to environmental justice and the allocation of resources before, during, and after wildfires in the state of California.
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spelling pubmed-80683282021-04-25 Disproportionate Impacts of Wildfires among Elderly and Low-Income Communities in California from 2000–2020 Masri, Shahir Scaduto, Erica Jin, Yufang Wu, Jun Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Wildfires can be detrimental to urban and rural communities, causing impacts in the form of psychological stress, direct physical injury, and smoke-related morbidity and mortality. This study examined the area burned by wildfires over the entire state of California from the years 2000 to 2020 in order to quantify and identify whether burned area and fire frequency differed across Census tracts according to socioeconomic indicators over time. Wildfire data were obtained from the California Fire and Resource Assessment Program (FRAP) and National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC), while demographic data were obtained from the American Community Survey. Results showed a doubling in the number of Census tracts that experienced major wildfires and a near doubling in the number of people residing in wildfire-impacted Census tracts, mostly due to an over 23,000 acre/year increase in the area burned by wildfires over the last two decades. Census tracts with a higher fire frequency and burned area had lower proportions of minority groups on average. However, when considering Native American populations, a greater proportion resided in highly impacted Census tracts. Such Census tracts also had higher proportions of older residents. In general, high-impact Census tracts tended to have higher proportions of low-income residents and lower proportions of high-income residents, as well as lower median household incomes and home values. These findings are important to policymakers and state agencies as it relates to environmental justice and the allocation of resources before, during, and after wildfires in the state of California. MDPI 2021-04-08 /pmc/articles/PMC8068328/ /pubmed/33917945 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18083921 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Masri, Shahir
Scaduto, Erica
Jin, Yufang
Wu, Jun
Disproportionate Impacts of Wildfires among Elderly and Low-Income Communities in California from 2000–2020
title Disproportionate Impacts of Wildfires among Elderly and Low-Income Communities in California from 2000–2020
title_full Disproportionate Impacts of Wildfires among Elderly and Low-Income Communities in California from 2000–2020
title_fullStr Disproportionate Impacts of Wildfires among Elderly and Low-Income Communities in California from 2000–2020
title_full_unstemmed Disproportionate Impacts of Wildfires among Elderly and Low-Income Communities in California from 2000–2020
title_short Disproportionate Impacts of Wildfires among Elderly and Low-Income Communities in California from 2000–2020
title_sort disproportionate impacts of wildfires among elderly and low-income communities in california from 2000–2020
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8068328/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33917945
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18083921
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