Qingyang Zhu, Danlu Zhang, Wenhao Wang, Rohan Richard D’Souza, Haisu Zhang, Binyu Yang, Kyle Steenland, Noah Scovronick, Stefanie Ebelt, Howard H Chang, and Yang Liu. Wildfires are associated with increased emergency department visits for anxiety disorders in the western United States. Nature Mental Health 2 (2024), 379–387.
Read the full paper online here.
Read the press release by Emory University here.
Check out the story by American Psychiatric Association here.
As wildfires increasingly impact the global economy and public health, understanding their effects is crucial. Particularly, the relationship between wildfires and anxiety disorders remains unclear. In this study, we explore this association by analyzing 1,897,865 emergency department visits for anxiety disorders in the western United States. We examined records from 2007 to 2018, using a case-crossover design and conditional logistic regression to assess the impact of wildfire-related exposures on these visits. Here we show that exposure to wildfire smoke PM2.5 is positively linked with emergency department visits for anxiety disorders. This effect is more pronounced in women and girls and in older adults, highlighting their vulnerability. Notably, major smoke events (smoke PM2.5 contributed ≥75% of the total PM2.5) significantly amplify this risk. These findings underscore the psychological impacts of wildfires and their smoke, suggesting a need for targeted disaster risk reduction and climate risk management strategies, especially for vulnerable groups such as older adults and women. Our results call for increased climate awareness and tailored risk communication to mitigate these emerging health challenges.