Estimated Global Mortality Attributable to Smoke from Landscape Fires

By F. Johnston, Sarah B. Henderson, Yang Chen, J. Randerson, M. Marlier, Ruth S. DeFries, P. Kinney, D. Bowman, M. Brauer. Environmental Health Perspectives, 2012

735 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Background: Forest, grass, and peat fires release approximately 2 petagrams of carbon into the atmosphere each year, influencing weather, climate, and air quality. Objective: We estimated the annual global mortality attributable to landscape fire smoke (LFS). Methods: Daily and annual exposure to particulate matter ≤ 2.5 μm in aerodynamic diameter (PM2.5) from fire emissions was estimated globally for 1997 through 2006 by combining outputs from a chemical transport model with satellite-based observations of aerosol optical depth. In World Health Organization (WHO) subregions classified as sporadically affected, the daily burden of mortality was estimated using previously published concentration–response coefficients for the association between short-term elevations in PM2.5 from LFS (contrasted with 0 μg/m3 from LFS) and all-cause mortality. In subregions classified as chronically affected, the annual burden of mortality was estimated using the American Cancer Society study coefficient for the association between long-term PM2.5 exposure and all-cause mortality. The annual average PM2.5 estimates were contrasted with theoretical minimum (counterfactual) concentrations in each chronically affected subregion. Sensitivity of mortality estimates to different exposure assessments, counterfactual estimates, and concentration–response functions was evaluated. Strong La Niña and El Niño years were compared to assess the influence of interannual climatic variability. Results: Our principal estimate for the average mortality attributable to LFS exposure was 339,000 deaths annually. In sensitivity analyses the interquartile range of all tested estimates was 260,000–600,000. The regions most affected were sub-Saharan Africa (157,000) and Southeast Asia (110,000). Estimated annual mortality during La Niña was 262,000, compared with 532,000 during El Niño. Conclusions: Fire emissions are an important contributor to global mortality. Adverse health outcomes associated with LFS could be substantially reduced by curtailing burning of tropical rainforests, which rarely burn naturally. The large estimated influence of El Niño suggests a relationship between climate and the burden of mortality attributable to LFS.

Subfields: Atmospheric Science, Global and Planetary Change, Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/9dda1165843a44c2554af74d5883ab0499d51d42

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Atmospheric Science

In Global and Planetary Change

In Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis

M. Brauer

Citations in the corpus

Critical Review of Health Impacts of Wildfire Smoke Exposure (2016, positive): “Current estimated annual global premature mortality attributed to wildfire smoke is 339,000 (interquartile range of sensitivity analyses: 260,000–600,000) (Johnston et al. 2012), but the overall impact on public health in terms of respiratory, cardiovascular, and other morbidity effects is unknown.”
Focus on changing fire regimes: interactions with climate, ecosystems, and society (2020, background): “The human health impacts of fire smoke are increasingly recognized (Johnston et al 2012, Bowman and Johnston 2014, Reid et al 2016, Cascio 2018), a fact that can dramatically increase the estimated economic burden of landscape fires (Jones and Berrens 2017, Thomas et al 2017).”
Extreme Weather and Climate Change: Population Health and Health System Implications (2021, background): “to range between 260,000 and 600,000 (90); however, this estimate could now be considered an underestimate given increases in population globally and increases in extreme wildfires in North America, Australia, Brazil, and other locations since that study’s publication in 2012.”
Public health impacts of the severe haze in Equatorial Asia in September–October 2015: demonstration of a new framework for informing fire management strategies to reduce downwind smoke exposure (2016, methodology): “Previous efforts to quantify health impacts from biomass burning in Equatorial Asia have proven computationally expensive (e.g., Johnston et al2012,Marlier et al2013).”
Environmental, Economic, and Social Consequences of the Oil Palm Boom (2020, background): “When plantations are established with land-clearing fires, large amounts of smoke, CO2, and toxic gases (CO, CO3, NO2) are released, causing respiratory problems and increased human mortality ( Johnston et al. 2012).”