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Do wildfires exacerbate COVID-19 infections and deaths in vulnerable communities? Evidence from California
Understanding whether and how wildfires exacerbate COVID-19 outcomes is important for assessing the efficacy and design of public sector responses in an age of more frequent and simultaneous natural disasters and extreme events. Drawing on environmental and emergency management literatures, we inves...
Autores principales: | , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Elsevier Ltd.
2023
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9705198/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36529003 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2022.116918 |
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author | Yu, Suyang Hsueh, Lily |
author_facet | Yu, Suyang Hsueh, Lily |
author_sort | Yu, Suyang |
collection | PubMed |
description | Understanding whether and how wildfires exacerbate COVID-19 outcomes is important for assessing the efficacy and design of public sector responses in an age of more frequent and simultaneous natural disasters and extreme events. Drawing on environmental and emergency management literatures, we investigate how wildfire smoke ([Formula: see text]) impacted COVID-19 infections and deaths during California's 2020 wildfire season and how public housing resources and hospital capacity moderated wildfires' effects on COVID-19 outcomes. We also hypothesize and empirically assess the differential impact of wildfire smoke on COVID-19 infections and deaths in counties exhibiting high and low social vulnerability. To test our hypotheses concerning wildfire severity and its disproportionate impact on COVID-19 outcomes in socially vulnerable communities, we construct a county-by-day panel dataset for the period April 1 to November 30, 2020, in California, drawing on publicly available state and federal data sources. This study's empirical results, based on panel fixed effects models, show that wildfire smoke is significantly associated with increases in COVID-19 infections and deaths. Moreover, wildfires exacerbated COVID-19 outcomes by depleting the already scarce hospital and public housing resources in local communities. Conversely, when wildfire smoke doubled, a one percent increase in the availability of hospital and public housing resources was associated with a 2 to 7 percent decline in COVID-19 infections and deaths. For California communities exhibiting high social vulnerability, the occurrence of wildfires worsened COVID-19 outcomes. Sensitivity analyses based on an alternative sample size and different measures of social vulnerability validate this study's main findings. An implication of this study for policymakers is that communities exhibiting high social vulnerability will greatly benefit from local government policies that promote social equity in housing and healthcare before, during, and after disasters. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9705198 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2023 |
publisher | Elsevier Ltd. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-97051982022-11-29 Do wildfires exacerbate COVID-19 infections and deaths in vulnerable communities? Evidence from California Yu, Suyang Hsueh, Lily J Environ Manage Research Article Understanding whether and how wildfires exacerbate COVID-19 outcomes is important for assessing the efficacy and design of public sector responses in an age of more frequent and simultaneous natural disasters and extreme events. Drawing on environmental and emergency management literatures, we investigate how wildfire smoke ([Formula: see text]) impacted COVID-19 infections and deaths during California's 2020 wildfire season and how public housing resources and hospital capacity moderated wildfires' effects on COVID-19 outcomes. We also hypothesize and empirically assess the differential impact of wildfire smoke on COVID-19 infections and deaths in counties exhibiting high and low social vulnerability. To test our hypotheses concerning wildfire severity and its disproportionate impact on COVID-19 outcomes in socially vulnerable communities, we construct a county-by-day panel dataset for the period April 1 to November 30, 2020, in California, drawing on publicly available state and federal data sources. This study's empirical results, based on panel fixed effects models, show that wildfire smoke is significantly associated with increases in COVID-19 infections and deaths. Moreover, wildfires exacerbated COVID-19 outcomes by depleting the already scarce hospital and public housing resources in local communities. Conversely, when wildfire smoke doubled, a one percent increase in the availability of hospital and public housing resources was associated with a 2 to 7 percent decline in COVID-19 infections and deaths. For California communities exhibiting high social vulnerability, the occurrence of wildfires worsened COVID-19 outcomes. Sensitivity analyses based on an alternative sample size and different measures of social vulnerability validate this study's main findings. An implication of this study for policymakers is that communities exhibiting high social vulnerability will greatly benefit from local government policies that promote social equity in housing and healthcare before, during, and after disasters. Elsevier Ltd. 2023-02-15 2022-11-29 /pmc/articles/PMC9705198/ /pubmed/36529003 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2022.116918 Text en © 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Since January 2020 Elsevier has created a COVID-19 resource centre with free information in English and Mandarin on the novel coronavirus COVID-19. The COVID-19 resource centre is hosted on Elsevier Connect, the company's public news and information website. Elsevier hereby grants permission to make all its COVID-19-related research that is available on the COVID-19 resource centre - including this research content - immediately available in PubMed Central and other publicly funded repositories, such as the WHO COVID database with rights for unrestricted research re-use and analyses in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for free by Elsevier for as long as the COVID-19 resource centre remains active. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Yu, Suyang Hsueh, Lily Do wildfires exacerbate COVID-19 infections and deaths in vulnerable communities? Evidence from California |
title | Do wildfires exacerbate COVID-19 infections and deaths in vulnerable communities? Evidence from California |
title_full | Do wildfires exacerbate COVID-19 infections and deaths in vulnerable communities? Evidence from California |
title_fullStr | Do wildfires exacerbate COVID-19 infections and deaths in vulnerable communities? Evidence from California |
title_full_unstemmed | Do wildfires exacerbate COVID-19 infections and deaths in vulnerable communities? Evidence from California |
title_short | Do wildfires exacerbate COVID-19 infections and deaths in vulnerable communities? Evidence from California |
title_sort | do wildfires exacerbate covid-19 infections and deaths in vulnerable communities? evidence from california |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9705198/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36529003 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2022.116918 |
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