Wildfire Health Risks in Relation to Local Senior Population’s CRD Incidence Rate in the Greater Toronto Area

Abstract

Wildfires as one of the most common and frequent environmental disasters in North America, Billions of government spending, public funds, resources, and personnel have been placed to cope with this natural disaster directly. The smoke, debris, particulates, ambient ultrafine particles, and other wildfire emissions have increasingly become a public health concern to which senior populations are particularly vulnerable, due to the populations' general behaviour and their physical health conditions. This essay investigates the implications of wildfires on public health by identifying the relationship between the exposure of wildfire emissions and the incidences of chronic respiratory disease in the senior population in the Greater Toronto Area. This research estimates the effects of wildfire emission exposure by using the cross-examination of the relevant health factors, including the incidence of wildfire; particulate level, ambulance service operation log and reported respiratory emergency disease to the incidences of wildfires. The Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have been placed to estimate the effect range and proximity of CRD incidences to the wildfire location.