Sarah B Henderson

BC Centre for Disease Control · Environmental Health Services

There is limited evidence for short-term association between mortality and ambient air pollution in the Middle East and no study has evaluated exposure windows of about a month prior to death. We investigated all-cause non-accidental daily mortality and its association with fine particulate matter (PM2.5), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), and the Air Qualit...

Background: British Columbia, Canada, was impacted by a record-setting heat dome in early summer 2021. Most households in greater Vancouver do not have air conditioning, and there was a 440% increase in community deaths during the event. Readily available data were analyzed to inform modifications to the public health response during subsequent eve...

Attributing individual deaths to extreme heat events (EHE) in Canada and elsewhere is important for understanding the risk factors, protective interventions, and burden of mortality associated with climate change. However, there is currently no single mechanism for identifying individual deaths due to EHE and different agencies have taken different...

A growing body of evidence indicates that exposure to air pollution affects cognitive performance; however, few studies have assessed this in the context of repeated measures within a large group of individuals or in a population with a large age range. In this study, we evaluate the associations between long-term exposure to fine particulate matte...

Background: The 2017 and 2018 wildfire seasons in British Columbia (BC), Canada were unprecedented. Among all the pollutants in wildfire smoke, fine particulate matter (PM2.5) poses the most significant risk to human health. There is limited research on prenatal wildfire-related PM2.5 exposure and its impacts on infant health. Objectives: We assess...

Human populations and ecosystems are extensively exposed to pesticides. Most nations lack the capacity to control pesticide contamination and have limited availability of pesticide use information. Ecuador is a country with intense pesticide use with high exposure risks to humans and the environment, although relative or combined risks are not well...

Background: Previous research has shown that cocaine-associated deaths occur more frequently in hot weather, which has not been described for other illicit drugs or combinations of drugs. The study objective was to evaluate the relation between temperature and risk of death related to cocaine, opioids and amphetamines in British Columbia, Canada....

Western North America experienced an unprecedented extreme heat event (EHE) in 2021, characterized by high temperatures and reduced air quality. There were approximately 740 excess deaths during the EHE in the province of British Columbia, making it one of the deadliest weather events in Canadian history. It is important to understand who is at ris...

Non-tailpipe emissions driven by springtime road dust in norther latitude communities is increasing in importance for air pollution control and improving our understanding of the health effects of chemical mixtures from particulate matter exposure. High-volume samples from a near-road site indicated that days affected by springtime road dust are su...

In late June 2021 a heatwave of unprecedented magnitude impacted the Pacific Northwest region of Canada and the United States. Many locations broke alltime maximum temperature records by more than 5 °C, and the Canadian national temperature record was broken by 4.6 °C, with a new record temperature of 49.6 °C. Here, we provide a comprehensive summa...

Wildfire smoke is a rapidly growing threat to global cardiovascular health. We review the literature linking wildfire smoke exposures to cardiovascular effects. We find substantial evidence that short-term exposures are associated with key cardiovascular outcomes, including mortality, hospitalization, and acute coronary syndrome. Wildfire smoke exp...

Purpose of Review Increasing wildfire size and severity across the western United States has created an environmental and social crisis that must be approached from a transdisciplinary perspective. Climate change and more than a century of fire exclusion and wildfire suppression have led to contemporary wildfires with more severe environmental impa...

Exposure to biomass smoke has been associated with a wide range of acute and chronic health outcomes. Over the past decades, the frequency and intensity of wildfires has increased in many areas, resulting in longer smoke episodes with higher concentrations of fine particulate matter (PM2.5). There are also many communities where seasonal open burni...

Background Residential wood burning is a major source of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) during winter and a leading contributor to air pollution. Exposure to woodsmoke PM2.5 is associated with many health effects, so it is important to characterize the magnitude and spatial variability in exposures. However, high infrastructure and maintenance cos...

Background: There is increasing evidence that long-term exposure to fine particulate matter [PM ≤2.5μm in aerodynamic diameter (PM2.5)] may adversely impact cognitive performance. Wildfire smoke is one of the biggest sources of PM2.5 and concentrations are likely to increase under climate change. However, little is known about how short-term expos...

In late June to early July 2021 a heatwave of unprecedented magnitude impacted the Pacific Northwest region, lands colonially named British Columbia (BC) and Alberta (AB) in Canada, and Washington (WA) and Oregon (OR) in the United States. Many locations broke all-time maximum daily temperature records by more than 5°C. The standing Canadian nation...

Wildfire smoke events are increasing in British Columbia (BC), Canada and environmental and public health agencies are responsible for communicating the health-related risks and mitigation strategies. To evaluate and identify opportunities for improving public communications about wildfire smoke and associated health risks we collaborated with end-...

This review addresses knowledge gaps in cannabis cultivation facility (CCF) air emissions by synthesizing the peer-reviewed and gray literature. Focus areas include compounds emitted, air quality indoors and outdoors, odor assessment, and the potential health effects of emitted compounds. Studies suggest that β-myrcene is a tracer candidate for CCF...

Wildfire smoke exposure is associated with a range of acute health outcomes, which can be more severe in individuals with underlying health conditions. Currently, there is limited information on the susceptibility of healthcare facilities to smoke infiltration. As part of a larger study to address this gap, a rehabilitation facility in Vancouver, C...

Odours from a wide range of sources can affect local air quality at different times and with different intensities. Unlike air pollutants such as fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and ground-level ozone (O3), there is no strong scientific evidence directly linking exposure to odours with specific health effects. Although odours are often characterize...

Wildland fires are diminishing air quality on a seasonal and regional basis, raising concerns about respiratory health risks to the public and occupational groups. This American Thoracic Society (ATS) workshop was convened in 2019 to meet the growing health threat of wildland fire smoke. The workshop brought together a multi-disciplinary group of 1...

Background: The modular British Columbia Asthma Prediction System (BCAPS) is designed to reduce information burden during wildfire smoke events by automatically gathering, integrating, generating, and visualizing data for public health users. The BCAPS framework comprises five flexible and geographically scalable modules: (1) historic data on fine...

Objective: Smoke from burning biomass is an important source of fine particulate matter (PM2.5), but the health risks may not be fully captured by the Canadian Air Quality Health Index (AQHI). In May 2018, the province of British Columbia launched an evidence-based amendment (AQHI-Plus) to improve AQHI performance for wildfire smoke, but the AQHI-P...

As we enter the wildfire season in the northern hemisphere, the potential for a dangerous interaction between SARS-CoV-2 and smoke pollution should be recognized and acknowledged. This is challenging because the public health threat of COVID-19 is immediate and clear, whereas the public health threat of wildfire smoke seems distant and uncertain in...

Background Extreme heat events have been associated with excess morbidity and mortality worldwide. Previous research mainly evaluated extreme heat exposures at the municipal and local scales, but individuals are exposed in much smaller areas. The goal of this study was to assess whether land use regression (LUR) models could be developed for air te...

BACKGROUND: Exposure to fine particulate matter (PM 2:5) during wildfire seasons has been associated with adverse health outcomes. Previous studies have focused on daily exposure, but PM 2:5 levels in smoke events can vary considerably within 1 d. OBJECTIVES: We aimed to assess the immediate and lagged relationship between sub-daily exposure to P...

Smoke from wildfires contains many air pollutants of concern and epidemiological studies have identified associations between exposure to wildfire smoke PM2.5 and mortality and respiratory morbidity, and a possible association with cardiovascular morbidity. For this study, a retrospective analysis of air quality modelling was performed to quantify...

Climate change is an increasingly important public health issue, reflected in morbidity and mortality outcomes during extreme heat events. At the same time, the harms of social isolation with respect to a wide range of health outcomes are becoming better understood. Given that older adults are at higher risk during hot weather and at higher risk of...

Previous research has associated snowfall with risk of myocardial infarction (MI). Most studies have been conducted in regions with harsh winters, it remains unclear whether snowfall is associated with risk of MI in regions with milder or more varied climates. This study used a case-crossover design to investigate the association between snowfall a...

Objective Wildfire smoke is an important source of air pollution associated with a range of cardiopulmonary health conditions. The Air Quality Health Index (AQHI) is the most widely used tool in Canada to communicate with the public about air pollution, but it may not adequately reflect health risks from wildfire smoke. The objective of this study...

In a rapidly urbanizing world, identifying evidence-based strategies to support healthy design is essential. Although urban living offers increased access to critical resources and can help to mitigate climate change, densely populated neighborhood environments are often higher in many of the physical and psychological stressors that are detrimenta...

Urban greenness has been associated with a wide range of health benefits, partially due to local cooling. Several studies on these health benefits have assessed individual and population exposure to urban greenness using the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) from different satellite platforms. Recent comparisons between birds-eye NDVI a...

Objectives To estimate the proportion of the Canadian population that is more susceptible to adverse effects of ozone (O3) and fine particle (PM2.5) air pollution exposure and how this varies by health region alongside ambient concentrations of O3 and PM2.5. Methods Using data from the census, the Canadian Community Health Survey, vital statistics...

The extensible Biomass Smoke Validated Events Database is an ongoing, community driven, collection of air pollution events which are known to be caused by vegetation fires such as bushfires (also known as wildfire and wildland fires), or prescribed fuel reduction burns, and wood heaters. This is useful for researchers of health impacts who need to...

Exposure to wildfire smoke averaged over 24-hour periods has been associated with a wide range of acute cardiopulmonary events, but little is known about the effects of sub-daily exposures immediately preceding these events. One challenge for studying sub-daily effects is the lack of spatially and temporally resolved estimates of smoke exposures. I...

Background: Ambulance data provide a useful source of population-based and spatiotemporally resolved information for assessing health impacts of air pollution in non-hospital settings. We used the clinical records of paramedics to quantify associations between PM2.5 and diabetic, cardiovascular, and respiratory conditions commonly managed by those...

Following an extreme heat event in 2009, a Heat Alert and Response System (HARS) was implemented for the greater Vancouver area of British Columbia (BC), Canada. This system has provided a framework for guiding public health interventions and assessing population response and adaptation to extreme heat in greater Vancouver, but no other parts of BC...

Sustainable fire management has eluded all industrial societies. Given the growing number and magnitude of wildfire events, prescribed fire is being increasingly promoted as the key to reducing wildfire risk. However, smoke from prescribed fires can adversely affect public health. We propose that the application of air quality standards can lead to...

Aeroallergens occur naturally in the environment and are widely dispersed across Canada, yet their public health implications are not well-understood. This review intends to provide a scientific and public health-oriented perspective on aeroallergens in Canada: their distribution, health impacts, and new developments including the effects of climat...

Forest fire smoke is a growing public health concern as more intense and frequent fires are expected under climate change. Remote sensing is a promising tool for exposure assessment, but its utility for health studies is limited because most products measure pollutants in the total column of the atmosphere, and not the surface concentrations most r...

Background: Data from poison centers have the potential to be valuable for public health surveillance of long-term trends, short-term aberrations from those trends, and poisonings occurring in near-real-time. This information can enable long-term prevention via programs and policies and short-term control via immediate public health response. Over...

Mortality attributable to extreme hot weather is a growing concern in many urban environments, and spatial heat vulnerability indexes are often used to identify areas at relatively higher and lower risk. Three indexes were developed for greater Vancouver, Canada using a pool of 20 potentially predictive variables categorized to reflect social vulne...

Various aspects of land use regression (LUR) models for volatile organic compounds (VOCs) were systematically reviewed. Sixteen studies were identified published between 2002 and 2017. Of these, six were conducted in Canada, five in the USA, two in Spain, and one each in Germany, Italy, and Iran. They were developed for 14 different individual VOCs...

Background/Aim The spatiotemporal variability of ambient volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in Tehran, Iran, is not well understood. Here we present the design, methods, and results of Tehran Study of Exposure Prediction for Environmental Health Research (Tehran SEPEHR) on ambient concentrations of benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, p-xylene, m-xylene,...

Background/Aim: We aimed to systematically review all land use regression (LUR) models developed for volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Methods: We searched 12 databases in The Web of Science® including Web of Science Core Collection, Medline and ten others up to March 10, 2017. Only original research articles were retained for the analyses. Studie...

FireWork is an on-line, one-way coupled meteorology–chemistry model based on near-real-time wildfire emissions. It was developed by Environment and Climate Change Canada to deliver operational real-time forecasts of biomass-burning pollutants, in particular fine particulate matter (PM2.5), over North America. Such forecasts provide guidance for ear...

Drinking water related infections are expected to increase in the future due to climate change. Understanding the current links between these infections and environmental factors is vital to understand and reduce the future burden of illness. We investigated the relationship between weekly reported cryptosporidiosis and giardiasis (n = 7,422), extr...