Wildfires are increasing across the United States and are a growing contributor to air pollution. Combining high-resolution satellite- and ground-based data on smoke exposure with standardized test scores reveals that smoke exposure worsens school students’ learning outcomes. The costs of lowered performance are mostly borne by economically disadvantaged communities of colour.
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References
Burke, M. et al. The changing risk and burden of wildfire in the United States. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 118, e2011048118 (2021). This paper finds that wildfire smoke has contributed nearly 25% of the particulate matter across the USA in recent decades and up to 50% in the Western US states.
Aguilera, R., Corringham, T., Gershunov, A. & Benmarhnia, T. Wildfire smoke impacts respiratory health more than fine particles from other sources: observational evidence from Southern California. Nat. Commun. 12, 1493 (2021). This paper reports that wildfire smoke affects respiratory health more than ambient air pollution.
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This is a summary of: Wen, J. & Burke, M. Lower test scores from wildfire smoke exposure. Nat. Sustain. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-022-00956-y (2022).
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Wildfire smoke exposure worsens students’ learning outcomes. Nat Sustain 5, 920–921 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-022-00958-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-022-00958-w
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