SUCCESSFUL AGING IN THE TIME OF WILDFIRES

Successful Aging in a Time of Wildfires (NIH)

ABOUT THE PROJECT

California has experienced an increasing number of wildfire events, leading to concerns about the impact of wildfire smoke on the health and well-being of older adults. “Successful Aging in a Time of Wildfires” is a research study designed to examine the effects of chronic and acute wildfire smoke exposure on the successful aging of community-dwelling older adults living in California. Emissions from wildfires pose significant threats to human health, including cardiovascular, respiratory, and neuro-cognitive effects, and are estimated to cause more than 15,000 fatalities per year. Older adults are particularly vulnerable to the impact of wildfire emissions, which exacerbate respiratory and cardiac diseases.

The research study has four specific research aims:

(1) to develop a California-based observational cohort of older adults with various levels of wildfire exposure from 2002-present
(2) to estimate outdoor and indoor exposure to chemically- explicit wildfire emissions among cohort participants
(3) to analyze saliva samples to identify epigenetic markers of wildfire-exposure, and analyze their association with inflammatory processes and functional impacts on neurological, cardiovascular, and respiratory systems
(4) to develop and test an ecological model for successful aging in older adults exposed to wildfire emissions that integrates exposure and behavioral data to determine the relationship between wildfire smoke exposure and successful aging outcomes

LEARN MORE ABOUT THE DANGERS OF WILDFIRE SMOKE

STUDY INVITATION: SUCCESSFUL AGING IN A TIME OF WILDFIRES

The researchers are reaching out to California households to take part in the study, hoping to learn more about the impact of exposure to wildfire smoke on people’s health. Researchers are interested in participants regardless of whether they have been personally exposed to a wildfire or smoke.

This study, funded by the National Institutes of Health, is being conducted by researchers at UCLA and New York University, in partnership with scientists at five other universities. This research has the support of the agencies listed to the right.

Participation in this study will involve, (1) completing a confidential survey about wildfires and your health, and (2) providing a saliva sample and a nasal swab.

LETTER TO POTENTIAL STUDY PARTICIPANTS

David Eisenman is a professor of medicine and public health at UCLA, and David Abramson is a clinical professor of social and behavioral sciences at NYU. Both are disaster scientists, who have studied hurricanes, oil spills, heat waves, tornadoes, pandemics, terrorism, and wildfires, among other extreme events. Here they are describing the NIH-funded Successful Aging in a Time of Wildfires study, a research project examining the health effects of wildfire smoke on older adults.