Benjamin Steiger’s research while affiliated with Columbia University and other places

Climate change will increase the frequency of extreme weather events. This means climate-driven events like wildfires and power outages will likely co-occur more often, potentially magnifying their health risks. We characterized three types of climate-driven events—anomalously warm temperatures, wildfire burn zone disasters, and long power outages—in 58 California counties during 2018–2019. We defined county-day anomalously warm temperatures when daily average temperatures exceeded 24 °C and the 85th percentile of the long-term county average. We defined county-day wildfire burn zone disasters when an active wildfire burn zone intersected a county, burned 1+ structures, killed a civilian, or received a Federal Emergency Management Agency Fire Management Declaration, and overlapped with a community. For a subset of the 38 counties (66%), long power outage county days were identified using PowerOutage.us data when an outage affected >0.5% of county customers for 8+ h. Co-occurring events were when 2+ of these events occurred on the same county day. Using the CDC/ATSDR Social Vulnerability Index (SVI), we determined whether co-occurring events disproportionately affected vulnerable populations. Nearly every county (97%) experienced at least one day of anomalously warm temperatures, 57% had at least one wildfire burn zone disaster day, and 63% (24/38 counties with available data) had at least one long power outage day. The most common co-occurring events (anomalously warm temperatures and wildfire burn zone disasters) impacted 24 (41%) counties for 144 total county-days. We did not find a clear connection between co-occurring events and social vulnerability. We observed an inverse correlation between co-occurring wildfire burn zone disasters and long power outage days with SVI, and a positive correlation between co-occurring anomalously warm and long power outage days with SVI. This analysis can inform regional resource allocation and other state-wide planning and policy objectives to reduce the adverse effects of climate-driven events.

Climate change will increase the frequency of extreme weather events. This means climate-driven events like wildfires and power outages will likely co-occur more often, potentially magnifying their health risks. We characterized three types of climate-driven events—anomalously warm temperatures, wildfire burn zone disasters, and long power outages—in 58 California counties during 2018–2019. We defined county-day anomalously warm temperatures when daily average temperatures exceeded 24°C and the 85th percentile of the long-term county average. We defined county-day wildfire burn zone disasters when an active wildfire burn zone intersected a county, burned 1+ structures, killed a civilian, or received a FEMA Fire Management Declaration, and overlapped with a community. For a subset of the 38 counties (66%), long power outage county days were identified using PowerOutage.us data when an outage affected > 0.5% of county customers for 8+ hours. Co-occurring events were when 2+ of these events occurred on the same county day. Using the CDC/ATSDR Social Vulnerability Index (SVI), we determined whether co-occurring events disproportionately affected vulnerable populations. Nearly every county (97%) experienced at least one day of anomalously warm temperatures, 57% had at least one wildfire burn zone disaster day, and 63% (24/38 counties with available data) had at least one long power outage day. The most common co-occurring events (anomalously warm temperatures and wildfire burn zone disasters) impacted 24 (41%) counties for 144 total county-days. We did not find a clear connection between co-occurring events and social vulnerability. We observed an inverse correlation between co-occurring wildfire burn zone disasters and long power outage days with SVI, and a positive correlation between co-occurring anomalously warm and long power outage days with SVI. This analysis can inform regional resource allocation and other state-wide planning and policy objectives to reduce the adverse effects of climate-driven events.

The recent increases in wildfire activity in the western United States has coincided with the proliferation of oil and gas development and substantial population growth in the wildland-urban interface. Drilling and operating oil and gas wells is already associated with emissions of harmful pollutants and higher risks of adverse health outcomes for nearby residents. Perturbation from climate-driven disasters such as wildfire could exacerbate these risks and introduce new hazards. Here, we examined historical threats of wildfires for oil and gas wells, the extent to which wildfires are projected to threaten wells as climate change progresses, and exposure of human populations to these wells. Between 1984 and 2019, we found that 102,882 oil and gas wells were located in wildfire burn areas and cumulatively 348,853 people were exposed (resided ≤ 1 km from these wells). During this period, we observed a five-fold increase in the number of wells in wildfire burn areas and a doubling of the population exposed. Approximately 2.9 million people currently reside within 1 km of the 118,409 wells in high wildfire risk areas, with disproportionately high exposure for communities of color. These trends are projected to worsen, with 87,261 additional wells projected to be in high wildfire risk areas by late century. Policymakers have an opportunity to proactively address expected wildfire impacts on oil and gas development and nearby communities by prioritizing wildfire-threatened wells for retirement, monitoring wells for leaks of flammable gases, and restricting drilling in areas projected to have high future wildfire risk.

Background: People using electricity-dependent durable medical equipment (DME) may be vulnerable to health effects from wildfire smoke, residence near wildfires, or residence in evacuation zones. To our knowledge, no studies have examined their healthcare utilization during wildfires. Methods: We obtained 2016-2020 counts of residential Zip Code Tabulation Area (ZCTA) level outpatient, emergency department (ED), and inpatient visits made by DME-using Kaiser Permanente Southern California members 45+. We linked counts to daily ZCTA-level wildfire PM2.5 and wildfire boundary and evacuation data from the 2018 Woolsey and 2019 Getty wildfires. We estimated the association of lagged (up to 7 days) wildfire PM2.5 and residence near a fire or in an evacuation zone and healthcare visit frequency with negative binomial and difference-in-differences models. Results: Among 236,732 DME users, 10 µg/m3 increases in wildfire PM2.5 concentration were associated with reduced rate (RR = 0.96, 95% CI: 0.94, 0.99) of all-cause outpatient visits one day after exposure and increased rate on 4 of 5 subsequent days (RR range 1.03-1.12). Woolsey Fire proximity (<20km) was associated with reduced all-cause outpatient visits, while evacuation and proximity were associated with increased inpatient cardiorespiratory visits (proximity RR = 1.45, 95% CI: 0.99, 2.12, evacuation RR = 1.72, 95% CI: 1.00, 2.96). Neither Getty Fire proximity nor evacuation was associated with healthcare visit frequency. Conclusions: Our results support the hypothesis that wildfire smoke or proximity interrupts DME users' routine outpatient care, via sheltering in place. However, wildfire exposures were also associated with increased urgent healthcare utilization in this vulnerable group.

Stationary sources of air pollution are disproportionately located in communities of colour, but the causes for this disparity are unclear. Here we assess whether racialized appraisals of investment risk (‘red-lining’) undertaken by the US federal Home Owners’ Loan Corporation in the 1930s influenced the subsequent siting of fossil fuel power plants. Across 8,871 neighbourhoods in 196 US urban areas, we observed a stepwise correlation between risk grade, number of power plants and cumulative quantity of power plant emissions upwind and within 5 km. Controlling for pre-existing power plants, neighbourhoods deemed ‘hazardous’ (D grade, ‘red-lined’) had a higher likelihood of a fossil fuel power plant being sited between 1940 and 1969 (72%), 1970 and 1999 (20%) and 2000 and 2019 (31%), and higher average present-day emissions of nitrous oxides (82%), sulfur dioxide (38%) and fine particulate matter (63%) compared with ‘declining’ (C-graded) neighbourhoods. Our results suggest racism in the housing market contributed to inequalities in present-day power plant emissions burdens.