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 impacts and human smoke exposure. Wildfires increase smoke exposure for broad swaths of the US population, though outdoor workers and socially disadvantaged groups with limited adaptive capacity can be disproportionally exposed. Exposure to wildfire smoke is associated with a range of health impacts in children and adults, including exacerbation of existing respiratory diseases such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, worse birth outcomes, and cardiovascular events. Seasonally dry forests in Washington, Oregon, and California can benefit from ecological restoration as a way to adapt forests to climate change and reduce smoke impacts on affected communities.Recent Findings: Each wildfire season, large smoke events, and their adverse impacts on human health receive considerable attention from both the public and policymakers. The severity of recent wildfire seasons has state and federal governments outlining budgets and prioritizing policies to combat the worsening crisis. This surging attention provides an opportunity to outline the actions needed now to advance research and practice on conservation, economic, environmental justice, and public health interests, as well as the trade-offs that must be considered.Summary: Scientists, planners, foresters and fire managers, fire safety, air quality, and public health practitioners must collaboratively work together. This article is the result of a series of transdisciplinary conversations to find common ground and subsequently provide a holistic view of how forest and fire management intersect with human health through the impacts of smoke and articulate the need for an integrated approach to both planning and practice.

Community-engaged research is understood as existing on a continuum from less to more community engagement, defined by participation and decision-making authority. It has been widely assumed that more is better than less engagement. However, we argue that what makes for good community engagement is not simply the extent but the fit or alignment between the intended approach and the various contexts shaping the research projects. This article draws on case studies from three Community Engagement Cores (CECs) of NIEHS-funded Environmental Health Science Core Centers (Harvard University, UC Davis and University of Arizona,) to illustrate the ways in which community engagement approaches have been fit to different contexts and the successes and challenges experienced in each case. We analyze the processes through which the CECs work with researchers and community leaders to develop place-based community engagement approaches and find that different strategies are called for to fit distinct contexts. We find that alignment of the scale and scope of the environmental health issue and related research project, the capacities and resources of the researchers and community leaders, and the influences of the sociopolitical environment are critical for understanding and designing effective and equitable engagement approaches. These cases demonstrate that the types and degrees of alignment in community-engaged research projects are dynamic and evolve over time. Based on this analysis, we recommend that CBPR scholars and practitioners select a range of project planning and management techniques for designing and implementing their collaborative research approaches and both expect and allow for the dynamic and changing nature of alignment.

Introduction: As wildfire smoke events increase in intensity and frequency in the Pacific Northwest, there is a growing need for effective communication on the health risks of smoke exposure. Delivery through a trusted source or intermediary has been shown to improve reception of risk communication messages. This is especially salient in rural and tribal communities who may be hesitant to trust information from state and federal agency sources. This study aims to identify and characterize trusted sources for smoke risk information in the Okanogan River Airshed Emphasis Area (ORAEA), a rural region of North Central Washington state that is heavily impacted by smoke from wildfires and prescribed fire.Methods: The research team conducted a qualitative study using data collected through key informant interviews and focus groups to assess the role of various sources and intermediaries in disseminating smoke risk information. We used a consensual coding approach in NVivo Qualitative Analysis Software to sort data into preliminary categories, which were grouped into themes using a thematic analysis approach. We used member checking and iterative feedback processes with local project partners throughout the project to ensure credibility of results.Results: Through the analysis, we identified three themes characterizing trusted sources for smoke risk communication in the ORAEA. These themes were: (1) local and tribal sources of information are perceived as more trustworthy than state and federal government sources, (2) trustworthiness is determined by an evaluation of multiple factors, in particular, perceived credibility, quality of information, and relationship with the source, and (3) conservative political ideology and perceived parallels with COVID-19 communication influence perception of trust. Within each theme, we identified several sub-themes, which contributed additional nuance to our analysis.Conclusion: This study provides insights into which sources of information are trusted by rural and tribal community members in the ORAEA and why. Results from our study emphasize the importance of relationships and collaboration with local and tribal partners in smoke risk communication. In this paper, we discuss implications for state and federal agency practitioners and present recommendations for how to work with local and tribal partners on smoke risk communication.

Extreme smoke events from wildland fires are increasing in frequency and intensity across the country. Risk communication around wildland and prescribed fires is an essential component of both smoke-readiness and resilience. To date, little research has been conducted on how smoke exposure risks can be communicated effectively, especially within the context of rural and tribal communities, who experience a disproportionate burden of smoke risks and impacts. This qualitative study analyzed how tribal and non-tribal communities in the Okanogan River Airshed Emphasis Area (ORAEA) receive and share information about smoke exposure to highlight gaps and communication opportunities for smoke risk communication. The ORAEA is a region of north-central Washington that is frequently blanketed with smoke year-round from wildland fire in the summer, prescribed fire in the fall and spring, and wood burning stoves in the winter. This study was the result of a partnership between the Okanogan River Airshed Partnership, the Natural Resource Division for the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, the Colville Environmental Trust Air Quality Program, and the University of Washington. The study team conducted seventeen key informant interviews and six focus groups to identify community perceptions of smoke exposure and describe its impact. A thematic analysis of interview and focus group data identified five themes around wildfire smoke risk communication: (1) perception of the health risks of smoke; (2) current ways of sharing information about smoke; (3) trusted sources of information; (4) gaps and communication opportunities; and (5) perceptions of prescribed fire. Based on these themes, we developed a set of six recommended actions. To create effective smoke risk communication that may be applicable to smoke-impacted regions across the country, messaging must address barriers to action, be rooted in community perceptions of risk, and be delivered through trusted channels.

Asthma is a heterogeneous disease differentiated by factors like allergen sensitivity, inflammation, sex, and age at onset. The mouse model is widely used to study the early-life development of allergic asthma. However, age-dependent allergen responses later in life remain relatively understudied and lack a widely accepted model. To differentiate age-dependent responses to the ubiquitous house dust mite (HDM), 3- and 9-mo-old female C57BL/6 mice were randomized into two groups each and exposed to HDM or phosphate-buffered saline (control) via intranasal instillation for sensitization and challenge phases. At 24 h after challenge, all mice underwent pulmonary function testing and methacholine challenge. Bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) was collected for assessment of cell differentials, and right lung lobes were fixed, sectioned, and stained for histopathology and immunohistochemistry. Both age groups demonstrated strong inflammatory/allergic responses to HDM exposure. However, only 9-mo-old HDM-exposed mice demonstrated significant airway hyperresponsiveness compared with age-matched controls. These HDM-exposed mice also had 1) statistically significant increases in tissue bronchiolitis, perivasculitis, and BALF neutrophilia relative to their younger counterparts and 2) significantly increased extent of immunostaining compared with all other groups. This study presents a potential model for adult-onset asthma, focusing specifically on the atopic, perimenopausal female phenotype. Our findings suggest that lung function declines with age and that the inflammatory profile of this adult subgroup is a mixed, rather than a simple, atopic, Th2 response. This model may enhance our understanding of how age influences the development of asthmic-like symptoms in older subgroups.

Imperial Valley, California has become increasingly hot, dry, and polluted over the past decade. Particulate matter (PM) levels are amongst the highest in this State, associated with significantly higher asthma prevalence among children in the region compared to national and state averages. The present study was performed to test the hypothesis that Imperial Valley PM by size and chemical composition might possess allergenic properties following introduction into murine lungs without prior sensitization to a known allergen with size fraction as a determining factor. In acute exposure experiments, BALB/c male mice were administered a single 50-μl oropharyngeal aspiration of nanopure water (H₂O; control) or a stock 1 μg/μl PM solution. In sub-acute exposure experiments, male and female mice were treated with a total of six 16.6-μl intranasal instillations of H₂O or stock PM solution over the course of 14 days. In all experiments, pulmonary function tests were performed 24 hr after the final instillation followed by necropsies for the collection of biological samples. Inflammatory responses measured via cellularity in histopathological tissue sections as well as significant, marked influxes of eosinophils and lymphocytes were noted in the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid in mice administered PM compared to control. Allergic responses, including airway hyperresponsiveness and significantly increased expression of IL-1ß, were found in male mice exposed to either PM_2.5 or ultrafine (PM_UF). A combination of all three size fractions of PM from Imperial Valley initiated atopic and asthmatic-like symptoms in the lungs of mice in the absence of additional allergen or preexisting condition.