PSE Faculty Fellows Receive Environmental Health Science Grants
Invasive fungal infections are a suspected unrecognized threat of California Wildfires
- Principal Investigator: Naomi Hauser, Department of Internal Medicine
- Community partner: UC Davis Fire Department, Nathaniel Hartinger, Deputy Fire Chief
The problem: Smoke is known to have both living and non-living components which can be carried long distances in the air. Some of these non-living elements include fungal particles which have the potential to be concerning to human health. While some worsening health risks and outcomes are routinely attributed to climate change and wildfires, such as increasing numbers of burns, heat stroke, smoke inhalation and negative mental health outcomes, data regarding the relationship between wildfires and respiratory infections are mixed and research into other types of infections is minimal.
The project: For this project, we will begin to investigate the relationship between wildfires and human health from the perspective of human infections. We will look at fungal infections in burn patients admitted to our Burn ICU at UC Davis Hospital and compare these infections to fungi isolated in the air inside the hospital and at wildfire sites. We will enlist the help of the UC Davis Fire Department for sample collection at wildfire sites. We will also compare fungal infections in these patients during wildfire and non-wildfire seasons in California. We expect to find an increase in fungal infections during CA wildfires as well as an increase in fungal particles in the air closer to wildfires. We also expect that wildfire burns will be associated with a greater number of fungal infections than other types of burns.
Understanding the Persistence of Poor Air Quality and Environmental Injustice in Imperial Valley, California
- Principal Investigator: Ian Faloona, Department of Land, Air and Water
- Community partner: Comité Cívico del Valle (CCV), Christian Torres & Luis Olmedo
The problem: Even in the absence of a large urban center, the Imperial County routinely violates air pollution standards established by the Clean Air Act for both particulate matter (PM) and ozone (O03). Despite ozone reductions of about 30% in the last decade in major urban areas of California, ozone in the Imperial Valley has not improved. Warm year-round temperatures make the area one of the most productive farming regions in California, with an estimated output of over one billion dollars annually. Consequently, it is home to some of the largest emissions of the air pollutant nitric oxide, a major precursor of PM and O3, which is produced by microbes in soil under the application of fertilizer.
The project: We are undertaking a year-long study of the nitrogen isotopic fingerprints of PM to determine the percentage of nitrogen in the air that is derived from fossil fuel combustion versus agricultural fertilizer use. Microbes in the soil will preferentially consume the lighter isotope of nitrogen thereby leaving a fingerprint of their contribution to the oxidized nitrogen, which increases the produced ozone and particulate matter in the atmosphere. We further propose to continue working with community groups such as Comité Cívico del Valle (CCV) and the local pollution control board to analyze their community network PM data and help them identify neighborhoods that appear to be most severely impacted by poor air quality.
A complete list of grant recipients is available at Environmental Health Sciences.