{"doi":"10.1002/ppul.27111","title":"Indoor air pollution increases during wildfires for children with bronchopulmonary dysplasia","abstract":"Wildfires are becoming a more frequent and significant problem due to climate change. Wildfire smoke, a combination of air pollutants, is hazardous to respiratory health, leading to public health advisories to remain indoors. However, smoke can enter the home and make the indoor air unhealthy as well.1 The biggest health threat with smoke exposure is the fine particles (PM2.5) that deposit deep in the respiratory tract and can cause symptoms and exacerbate underlying lung diseases.1 In our ongoing study, indoor environmental study for preterm infants (INEST), we are evaluating the respiratory health effects of measured indoor air pollution (PM2.5) in infants with bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) over the course of a year. Since multiple participants were monitoring their indoor air during the summer of 2023 when Canadian wildfire smoke extended into the Philadelphia region causing widespread levels of air pollution, the authors were interested in seeing how indoor air quality was impacted by the significant ambient air pollution. Subjects were all enrolled in INEST and were included in this analysis if they had PM2.5 data for May–July 2023 (see Supporting Information S1: Supplemental Table 1 for INEST inclusion/exclusion criteria). An AirVisual Pro® was provided to each participant in INEST, which they were asked to set up in the main living space at home. Every 10 s the device records PM2.5 and calculated AQI (US). For this analysis, we downloaded hourly PM2.5 and AQI from May to July 2023. Ambient PM2.5 and AQI from each participant's County (within Pennsylvania and New Jersey) was downloaded from Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) monitors. We calculated means and ranges for PM2.5 and AQI. We also evaluated the number of days that PM2.5 and AQI exceeded the recommended EPA levels (PM2.5 24-h mean > 35 ug/m3). Linear mixed models were used for daily PM2.5 and AQI values to examine the difference between June and other months for indoor and outdoor air. The models account for correlations of the data and adjust for time trend. R program was used for all analyzes. p < .05 was considered statistically significant. This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (IRB 21-019162). There were 14 subjects with PM2.5 data available for May–July 2023 (Table 1). The mean ambient County level daily PM2.5 was 8.6, 27.0, and 12.2 mcg/m3 and corresponding AQI was 33.9, 68.2, and 45.1 for May, June, and July respectively. Indoor mean daily PM2.5 was 7.2, 17, and 9.5 mcg/m3 and corresponding AQI was 22.0, 44.1 and 29.3 for May, June, and July respectively (Figure 1). Both indoor and outdoor mean daily concentrations of PM2.5 were significantly higher in June compared to May and July (p < .001). There were 5 days in June (6–8th and 29–30th) when the mean daily PM2.5 for both indoor (54.7 mcg/m3) and outdoor (97.2 mcg/m3), exceeded National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) (Figure 1). In this study of 14 subjects with BPD, we found that home air quality was negatively impacted by wildfire smoke, and concentrations of indoor PM2.5 exceeded NAAQS for 5 days in June 2023. This is concerning since public health advice includes sheltering indoors with windows and doors closed in addition to use of a HEPA air purifier. Similar to our findings, a study of low-income homes in Denver, Colorado during wildfire seasons found that long-range wildfire plumes elevated median indoor particulate matter concentrations by almost four times compared to when there were no wildfires.2 Another study in California that used crowdsourced indoor air monitor data from over 1400 residential buildings during two wildfire seasons, found that the mean indoor concentration of PM2.5 nearly tripled during wildfire events.3 The EPA has concluded that fine particle pollution is a serious health threat based on its association with adverse health effects.4 Children are especially vulnerable while they are growing and d","journal":"Pediatric Pulmonology","year":2024,"id":480322,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":1,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9586,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2024-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":773911,"name":"Jelte Kelchtermans","orcid":"0000-0001-9186-7547","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":883074,"name":"Nancy Li","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":444998,"name":"Yun Li","orcid":"0000-0001-8225-4554","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":339132,"name":"Joseph M. Collaco","orcid":"0000-0002-2581-4372","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":339130,"name":"Sharon A. McGrath‐Morrow","orcid":"0000-0002-1576-5394","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":250758,"name":"Jessica L. Rice","orcid":"0000-0002-3346-3963","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":5,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:06:58.305365Z","pmid":"38837692","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}