Letter from California, USA

Details

• Personal Author:
  Gandhi SA
• Description:
  On the morning of 9 September 2020, residents of the San Francisco Bay Area awoke to an eerie orange light filtering through the windows. Over the next day, post-apocalyptic images of the glowing, ash-filled sky flooded social media and became a global news focus. Air quality sharply decreased to unhealthy levels as ash particles fell to the ground. This alarming event was the result of a dry lightning storm that occurred 3 weeks before. During this storm, more than 12000 lightning strikes hit California in a single week, causing hundreds of fires, two of which ranked among the three largest in California's recorded history. By mid-September, four fires encircled the Bay Area, creating a belt of 4000-ft thick smoke. At the time of this writing, more than 13 million acres (52000 km2) and 14000 structures have burned in the Western United States during the current 2020 fire season. In the context of the concurrent coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, thousands have been evacuated, and entire neighbourhoods decimated because of wildfires. However, the respiratory consequences of these fires have yet to be fully realized. ... Environmental and public health disasters have highlighted the health disparities in California and the United States. The public health community is starting to recognize the continued onslaught of obstacles impacting communities of colour that increases their vulnerability to respiratory exposures-environmental or infectious. We hope that greater emphasis and resources will be placed upon improving the resilience of the public health infrastructure to support vulnerable communities through future challenges in the coming years. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Air Pollution Communicable Diseases Environmental Exposure Fires Healthcare Disparities Occupational Health Public Health Safety Wildfires
• Keywords:
  Air Pollution Air Quality Author Keywords: Air Pollution COVID-19 Environmental And Occupational Health And Epidemiology Environmental Exposure Health Disparities Lightning Public Health Smoke Inhalation Wildfire Smoke

  More +
• ISSN:
  1323-7799
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Grant
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  California ; OSHA Region 9
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  127-128
• Volume:
  26
• Issue:
  1
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20062531
• Citation:
  Respirology 2021 Jan; 26(1):127-128
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2021
• Performing Organization:
  University of California, Berkeley
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Start Date:
  20050701
• Source Full Name:
  Respirology
• End Date:
  20250630
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:d134ca90e1f0c0a583cfca36797625767e6dad1cccd3d9a7238e267fecd57e6b89689406adbafad7f74009b3e18bf7bd2585a8348aef55bc68097ec53f31f7e0
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/225761/cdc_225761_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 230.09 KB ]