Thread by @j_g_allen

Important paper on wildfire smoke, using cell phones and internet search. When it comes to searching for air quality info, similar for high- and low-income. But when it comes to health protection and staying home to avoid smoke…

1/n

nature.com/articles/s4156…

“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.”

2/n

Why care about wildfire smoke?

“During smoke events, indoor particulate matter (PM2.5) concentrations often remain 3–4× above health-based guidelines and vary by 20× between neighbouring households.”

3/n

These findings “suggest that policy reliance on self-protection to mitigate smoke health risks will have modest and unequal benefits.”

4/n

Outdoor particles penetrate indoors. But the #HealthyBuilding strategies we’ve been advocating for for Covid work for wildfire, too. But here, shift the balance to filtration over ventilation.

5/n

news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/…

And careful - the system needs to be running for in-duct filters to work! Filters not doing anything if no airflow across them!

6/n

Also, perfect use case for portable air cleaners. They capture particles from wildfire smoke just like they capture particles from the respiratory system!

7/n

But this study shows it’s not just about *access to information*, it’s about *access to resources*.

Urgent investment and support needed for ventilation/filtration improvements in housing (a million benefits…), and subsidized air cleaners.

8/n

“Socio-economic status is not correlated with outdoor smoke levels but does appear to mediate behavioural responses to such pollution. Wealthier households in our sample can more easily stay home, are more likely to seek information on protective technology and…”

9/n

“…are more likely to own indoor pollution monitors. Such differential behaviour is consistent with a broader literature that shows how socio-economic status constrains households’ abilities to invest in environmental quality and health protection.”

10/n

“Yet, at least in our sample of monitor-owning households, income is only weakly correlated w/ the infiltration of ambient smoke into indoor environments, and we observe many households in wealthy neighbourhoods experiencing exceedingly high levels of indoor smoke exposure.”
11/n

“Current policy approaches to addressing smoke exposure focus on behavioural recommendations to stay at home and close windows and doors, but our results suggest that these policies alone are difficult to comply with and may still be inadequate:…”

12/n

“…many households’ indoor environments remain highly exposed, and our mobility results suggest that adherence might be difficult for lower-income households.”

13/n

“It such behaviours are indeed hard to adopt, then the policy approach of promoting private provision of protection could be biased against disadvantaged groups.”

END (I think, for now…)