Wildfire Smoke Exposure During Pregnancy: Consensus-Building to Co-Create a Community-Engaged Study

Kelsie Young, Kim Alisa Brown, Lynda Crocker Daniel, Katherine Duarte and Diana Rohlman ()
Additional contact information
Kelsie Young: Oregon Clinical & Translational Research Institute, Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, OR 97239, USA
Kim Alisa Brown: Pacific Northwest Environmental Health Sciences Center, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331, USA
Lynda Crocker Daniel: Oregon Clinical & Translational Research Institute, Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, OR 97239, USA
Katherine Duarte: Klamath County Public Health, Klamath Falls, OR 97603, USA
Diana Rohlman: Pacific Northwest Environmental Health Sciences Center, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331, USA

IJERPH, 2024, vol. 21, issue 11, 1-12

Abstract: Relative to other Oregon counties, Klamath County experiences worse air quality due to wildfire smoke, as well as elevated rates of infant mortality and low birthweight. Klamath County Public Health (KCPH) raised concerns that wildfire smoke is a contributor to poor infant health. Thus, we built a multidisciplinary team and designed a community-engaged research (CEnR) project to capture community and individual-level exposure to wildfire smoke contaminants, alongside perinatal health outcomes. Through partnerships, we identified 24 individuals across academic, public health, and community organizations that met five times over three months to develop a study design. We initially used a modified Delphi method, but adjusted our approach to find multidisciplinary areas of agreement across a highly diverse team. Our team used structured meetings, surveys, and iterative feedback to build consensus on a study design. KCPH and our community partners reviewed and approved all proposed activities to ensure community input was integrated. The resultant study, trialed in Klamath County, included the use of environmental, residential, and personal samplers and health surveys with a cohort of pregnant individuals during the wildfire season. We discuss the advantages and challenges of building a multidisciplinary CEnR study in a rural county disproportionately impacted by wildfire smoke and infant mortality.

Keywords: community-engaged research; environmental health; perinatal health; consensus-building; wildfire smoke (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/21/11/1513/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/21/11/1513/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:21:y:2024:i:11:p:1513-:d:1520490

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().