SCIENTISTS EXPAND STUDY ON AIR QUALITY IMPACT ON HEALTH

Scientists at the Oregon Institute of Technology were recently awarded a $1 million grant from the federal government that could result in research that improves health outcomes in Southern Oregon due to wildfire smoke. 

Since 2019, a team of Oregon Tech scientists has been studying the capacity of hospitals in the Rogue Valley to handle patients arriving with respiratory problems during wildfires when air quality plummets due to wildfires.

“If it’s in what we call ‘the purple,’ which is the really bad air quality, the likelihood that a hospital is going to exceed their capacity goes up to about 70 percent,” Kyle Chapman, an associate professor of sociology and population health at the Oregon Institute of Technology, told Oregon Public Broadcasting.

Chapman and his colleagues will now expand their focus to include admissions due to heart conditions experienced during wildfires in addition to respiratory illnesses such as asthma, which wildfire smoke can exacerbate.