A National Study on the Impact of Wildfire Smoke on Cause-Specific Hospitalizations Among Medicare Enrollees with Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias from 2006 to 2016
Older adults may experience worse wildfire fine particulate matter (PM<sub>2.5</sub>) smoke-related health effects due to conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRDs). We evaluated whether wildfire PM<sub>2.5</sub> was associated with acute hospitaliza...
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MDPI AG
2025-02-01
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| author | Vivian Do Heather McBrien Katharine Teigen Marissa L. Childs Marianthi-Anna Kioumourtzoglou Joan A. Casey |
| author_facet | Vivian Do Heather McBrien Katharine Teigen Marissa L. Childs Marianthi-Anna Kioumourtzoglou Joan A. Casey |
| author_sort | Vivian Do |
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| description | Older adults may experience worse wildfire fine particulate matter (PM<sub>2.5</sub>) smoke-related health effects due to conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRDs). We evaluated whether wildfire PM<sub>2.5</sub> was associated with acute hospitalizations among older adults with ADRD, linking modeled daily wildfire PM<sub>2.5</sub> concentrations and circulatory, respiratory, anxiety, and depression hospitalizations from 2006 to 2016. We employed a case-crossover design and conditional logistic regression to estimate associations between lagged daily wildfire PM<sub>2.5</sub> and hospitalizations. Also, we stratified cause-specific models by age, sex, emergency hospitalization status, and zip code-level urbanicity and poverty. The 1,546,753 hospitalizations among Medicare enrollees with ADRD were most coded for circulatory (71.7%), followed by respiratory (43.6%), depression (2.9%), and anxiety (0.7%) endpoints. We observed null associations between wildfire PM<sub>2.5</sub> and circulatory, respiratory, and anxiety hospitalizations over the six days following exposure. Same-day wildfire PM<sub>2.5</sub> was associated with decreased depression hospitalizations (rate ratio = 0.94, 95% CI: 0.90, 0.99). We saw some effect measure modifications by emergency hospitalization status and urbanicity. There were some stratum-specific effects for age, but the results remained mostly null. Future studies should use improved methods to identify ADRD and examine recent years with higher wildfire concentrations. |
| format | Article |
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| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-02-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
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| series | Fire |
| spelling | doaj-art-b1cff5d7ba1b4bbb97f1f633d784c2922025-08-20T02:11:05ZengMDPI AGFire2571-62552025-02-01839710.3390/fire8030097A National Study on the Impact of Wildfire Smoke on Cause-Specific Hospitalizations Among Medicare Enrollees with Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias from 2006 to 2016Vivian Do0Heather McBrien1Katharine Teigen2Marissa L. Childs3Marianthi-Anna Kioumourtzoglou4Joan A. Casey5Department of Environmental Health Sciences, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, New York, NY 10032, USADepartment of Environmental Health Sciences, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, New York, NY 10032, USADepartment of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, University of Washington School of Public Health, Seattle, WA 98195, USADepartment of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, University of Washington School of Public Health, Seattle, WA 98195, USADepartment of Environmental Health Sciences, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, New York, NY 10032, USADepartment of Environmental Health Sciences, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, New York, NY 10032, USAOlder adults may experience worse wildfire fine particulate matter (PM<sub>2.5</sub>) smoke-related health effects due to conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRDs). We evaluated whether wildfire PM<sub>2.5</sub> was associated with acute hospitalizations among older adults with ADRD, linking modeled daily wildfire PM<sub>2.5</sub> concentrations and circulatory, respiratory, anxiety, and depression hospitalizations from 2006 to 2016. We employed a case-crossover design and conditional logistic regression to estimate associations between lagged daily wildfire PM<sub>2.5</sub> and hospitalizations. Also, we stratified cause-specific models by age, sex, emergency hospitalization status, and zip code-level urbanicity and poverty. The 1,546,753 hospitalizations among Medicare enrollees with ADRD were most coded for circulatory (71.7%), followed by respiratory (43.6%), depression (2.9%), and anxiety (0.7%) endpoints. We observed null associations between wildfire PM<sub>2.5</sub> and circulatory, respiratory, and anxiety hospitalizations over the six days following exposure. Same-day wildfire PM<sub>2.5</sub> was associated with decreased depression hospitalizations (rate ratio = 0.94, 95% CI: 0.90, 0.99). We saw some effect measure modifications by emergency hospitalization status and urbanicity. There were some stratum-specific effects for age, but the results remained mostly null. Future studies should use improved methods to identify ADRD and examine recent years with higher wildfire concentrations.https://www.mdpi.com/2571-6255/8/3/97wildfirewildfire smokeolder adultsADRD |
| spellingShingle | Vivian Do Heather McBrien Katharine Teigen Marissa L. Childs Marianthi-Anna Kioumourtzoglou Joan A. Casey A National Study on the Impact of Wildfire Smoke on Cause-Specific Hospitalizations Among Medicare Enrollees with Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias from 2006 to 2016 Fire wildfire wildfire smoke older adults ADRD |
| title | A National Study on the Impact of Wildfire Smoke on Cause-Specific Hospitalizations Among Medicare Enrollees with Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias from 2006 to 2016 |
| title_full | A National Study on the Impact of Wildfire Smoke on Cause-Specific Hospitalizations Among Medicare Enrollees with Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias from 2006 to 2016 |
| title_fullStr | A National Study on the Impact of Wildfire Smoke on Cause-Specific Hospitalizations Among Medicare Enrollees with Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias from 2006 to 2016 |
| title_full_unstemmed | A National Study on the Impact of Wildfire Smoke on Cause-Specific Hospitalizations Among Medicare Enrollees with Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias from 2006 to 2016 |
| title_short | A National Study on the Impact of Wildfire Smoke on Cause-Specific Hospitalizations Among Medicare Enrollees with Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias from 2006 to 2016 |
| title_sort | national study on the impact of wildfire smoke on cause specific hospitalizations among medicare enrollees with alzheimer s disease and related dementias from 2006 to 2016 |
| topic | wildfire wildfire smoke older adults ADRD |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2571-6255/8/3/97 |
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