The association of wildfire air pollution with COVID-19 incidence in New South Wales, Australia
File version
Version of Record (VoR)
Author(s)
Michael, RN
Knibbs, LD
Bambrick, H
Haswell, MR
Wraith, D
Griffith University Author(s)
Primary Supervisor
Other Supervisors
Editor(s)
Date
Size
File type(s)
Location
Abstract
The 2020 COVID-19 outbreak in New South Wales (NSW), Australia, followed an unprecedented wildfire season that exposed large populations to wildfire smoke. Wildfires release particulate matter (PM), toxic gases and organic and non-organic chemicals that may be associated with increased incidence of COVID-19. This study estimated the association of wildfire smoke exposure with the incidence of COVID-19 in NSW. A Bayesian mixed-effect regression was used to estimate the association of either the average PM10 level or the proportion of wildfire burned area as proxies of wildfire smoke exposure with COVID-19 incidence in NSW, adjusting for sociodemographic risk factors. The analysis followed an ecological design using the 129 NSW Local Government Areas (LGA) as the ecological units. A random effects model and a model including the LGA spatial distribution (spatial model) were compared.
A higher proportional wildfire burned area was associated with higher COVID-19 incidence in both the random effects and spatial models after adjustment for sociodemographic factors (posterior mean = 1.32 (99% credible interval: 1.05–1.67) and 1.31 (99% credible interval: 1.03–1.65), respectively). No evidence of an association between the average PM10 level and the COVID-19 incidence was found. LGAs in the greater Sydney and Hunter regions had the highest increase in the risk of COVID-19. This study identified wildfire smoke exposures were associated with increased risk of COVID-19 in NSW. Research on individual responses to specific wildfire airborne particles and pollutants needs to be conducted to further identify the causal links between SARS-Cov-2 infection and wildfire smoke. The identification of LGAs with the highest risk of COVID-19 associated with wildfire smoke exposure can be useful for public health prevention and or mitigation strategies.
Journal Title
Science of The Total Environment
Conference Title
Book Title
Edition
Volume
Issue
Thesis Type
Degree Program
School
Publisher link
Patent number
Funder(s)
Grant identifier(s)
Rights Statement
Rights Statement
© 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Item Access Status
Note
This publication has been entered in Griffith Research Online as an advanced online version.
Access the data
Related item(s)
Subject
Respiratory diseases
Persistent link to this record
Citation
Cortes-Ramirez, J; Michael, RN; Knibbs, LD; Bambrick, H; Haswell, MR; Wraith, D, The association of wildfire air pollution with COVID-19 incidence in New South Wales, Australia, Science of The Total Environment, 2021, pp. 151158-151158