Exposures and behavioural responses to wildfire smoke

Pollution from wildfires constitutes a growing source of poor air quality globally. To protect health, governments largely rely on citizens to limit their own wildfire smoke exposures, but the effectiveness of this strategy is hard to observe. Using data from private pollution sensors, cell phones, social media posts and internet search activity, we find that during large wildfire smoke events, individuals in wealthy locations increasingly search for information about air quality and health protection, stay at home more and are unhappier. Residents of lower-income neighbourhoods exhibit similar patterns in searches for air quality information but not for health protection, spend less time at home and have more muted sentiment responses. During smoke events, indoor particulate matter (PM2.5) concentrations often remain 3-4x above health-based guidelines and vary by 20x between neighbouring households. Our results suggest that policy reliance on self-protection to mitigate smoke health risks will have modest and unequal benefits. Burke et al. show that smoke exposure is associated with behavioural changes and worsening sentiment, with important differences by income. They document substantial infiltration of smoke into homes, suggesting that current policy reliance on self-protection could be ineffective.

Automated summary

The study shows that during wildfire smoke events, residents in wealthy areas are more concerned about air quality and health protection, while those in lower-income neighborhoods exhibit less awareness of health protection and spend less time at home, with more neutral emotional responses. The reliance on self-protection in current policies to mitigate smoke health risks may not be effective and could lead to unequal benefits.