Exposure to smoke pollution ups risk for hospitalization for respiratory disease

For older adults in the Western United States, exposure to high levels of smoke pollution is associated with an increase in hospitalizations for respiratory diseases, according to a study published online April 30 in JAMA Network Open.

Sofia L. Vega, from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston, and colleagues characterized the associations between exposure to smoke-specific fine particulate matter (PM_2.5) and cause-specific hospitalizations among older adults in the Western United States using Medicare inpatient claims data from 2006 to 2016 linked to machine learning-derived smoke-specific PM_2.5. The study included 10,369,361 individuals, with 57 million person-months of follow-up, and 4.7 million unscheduled hospitalizations.

The researchers found that for respiratory hospitalizations and cardiovascular hospitalizations, smoke PM_2.5 concentration-response curves were flat at lower concentrations but demonstrated increasing trends at concentrations above 25 µg/m³.

When same-day and preceding week smoke PM_2.5 concentrations increased from 0 to 40 µg/m³, daily hospitalizations increased by 2.40 per 100,000 on average for respiratory concerns; hospitalizations for cardiovascular concerns increased by 3.61, which was not statistically significant. There were no associations seen for other causes of hospitalization.

“This information can be used by both policymakers and clinicians to design policies and guidelines to protect vulnerable older adults from the escalating health threats posed by wildfire smoke,” the authors write.

© 2025 HealthDay. All rights reserved.