Wildfires and Human Health

Global climate change has contributed to an increase in the incidence of wildfire events due to dry weather in conjunction with the overgrowth of vegetation in affected regions. The increased frequency of wildfires has raised grave concerns about adverse health effects resulting from the combustion of biomass and man-made products. 

 

Investigators in the Cardiorespiratory Diseases Unit have made a collective effort to build upon existing expertise in nonhuman primate models of cardiorespiratory disease and environmental toxicology to investigate how wildfire smoke exposures in outdoor colony rhesus macaques may serve as a translational model for long-term health outcomes in human populations.