The effect of wildfire air pollution on local hospital admissions in New York

Exposure to wildfire-associated smoke has increased in recent years in the Northeast of the United States. Of particular note was the smoke event in June 2023 when plumes from Canadian wildfires caused a high pollution event in New York State. We used data from Stony Brook Hospital to assess the effect of the June 2023 smoke event on healthcare encounters, including emergency department (ED) visits and inpatient admissions. We examined all-cause encounters, cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), hypertension, respiratory diseases, and asthma. We then extended our study to look at longer term trends using a time-series analysis looking at the effect of exposure to wildfire smoke-associated PM_2.5 on healthcare encounters. We studied the association between exposure to wildfire-associated PM_2.5 at the county level to daily hospital visits between January 2014 through July 2023. Other exposures of interest included non-smoke PM_2.5, ozone, and temperature. We found increased rates of total hospital visits for CVD (rate ratio: 1.34 (95% CI: 1.07–1.68)) and hypertension (rate ratio: 1.47, (95% CI: 1.08–2.00)) during the smoke event in 2023 as compared to the reference period, driven primarily by increased ED visits. We also found an increase in the rate of inpatient respiratory admissions (rate ratio: 1.60 (195% CI: 1.03–2.48) as compared to the reference period. Our time-series analysis showed an increased rate of total encounters with exposure to wildfire-smoke PM_2.5. Higher temperatures were also associated with increased rates of all-cause health care encounters as well as cardiovascular and respiratory encounters. Our study found adverse outcomes related to exposure to wildfire-associated air pollution in a suburban community during a high exposure wildfire smoke event. It highlights the need for further local mitigation and adaptation measures in response to increasing wildfires.