Health impacts of woodsmoke
Studying the health impacts of wood smoke in small population centres in New Zealand
Many small, New Zealand communities rely on solid-fuel burning for home heating, particularly during winter. Fine particulate matter (PM) from wood burners can become trapped in the breathing zone during cold, clear and calm conditions and has the potential to cause adverse health impacts on residents.
Information on air quality and PM impacts is often drawn from overseas studies. Many of these examine long term exposure and are often conducted in densely populated areas where other sources of air contaminants such as traffic emissions make it difficult to separate the impact of emissions caused only by wood smoke. In New Zealand, exposure to wood smoke is often seasonal and most small towns do not suffer from high levels of other air contaminants. As such, these towns present a unique opportunity to investigate the health impacts of seasonal wood smoke largely in isolation from other sources.
An Envirolink Medium Advice Grant has provided funding to provide approaches to link monitoring of air quality to health impacts in New Zealand cities and towns with less than 50,000 inhabitants.
The funding was provided to Hawkes Bay Regional Council (HBRC) however the work was supported by all the councils involved in the National Air Quality Working Group. Dr Kathleen Kozyniak – HBRC’s Principal Air Scientist says the work is relevant to all councils to help us achieve our primary objective of good health outcomes. Expertise for the project was provided by the University of Auckland.
Kathleen says that the work has been very useful in highlighting the considerations, difficulties and care required to embark on this type of assessment and the value of partnering with an organisation that has experience in this area. She says the information from this project will feed into Council planning for future air quality monitoring that is associated with health effects in the Hawkes Bay Region.
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