ABSTRACT

We undertake a nationwide US study to estimate how mega-fires (defined as wildfires >100,000 acres in size) affect short-term infant health outcomes in communities located within the flame zone. This is the first study to look exclusively at mega-fires, which have unique characteristics compared to smaller wildfire events and are becoming more frequent in the US. We find that pregnant mothers in affected counties experience 0.8 percentage point greater instances of low birth weight and 1.2 percentage point greater instances of prematurity. The low birth weight finding is equivalent to what would be expected if a mother smoked approximately 6.2 cigarettes per day during pregnancy. Importantly, impacts are potentially non-linearly increasing in mega-fire size. Improved benefit-cost analyses are needed to account for mega-fire indirect impacts when making wildfire control and suppression decisions.

摘要

我们在美国进行了一项全国性研究，以估计特大火灾（定义为 > 100,000 英亩的野火）如何影响位于火焰区域内的社区的短期婴儿健康结果。这是第一项专门研究特大火灾的研究，与较小的野火事件相比，特大火灾具有独特的特征，并且在美国变得越来越频繁。我们发现，受影响县的孕妇出现低出生体重的情况增加了 0.8 个百分点，而早产的情况增加了 1.2 个百分点。如果母亲在怀孕期间每天吸烟大约 6.2 支烟，那么低出生体重的发现等同于预期的结果。重要的是，大型火灾规模的影响可能会非线性增加。