
Wildfire season is in full swing across North America. For patients with COPD and asthma, increased smoke in the air can exacerbate their conditions. But new research has found that communities impacted by wildfire activity can use a population health-based action plan to help alleviate risks to those patients.
A perspective article, published in the Journal of the COPD Foundation, examined the population health approach that has been enacted by the University of California, Davis Health (UCDH), which is located in the heart of one of California’s largest wildfire zones.
“Over many years, we watched the increasingly frequent and significant impact of wildfires on the patients in our COPD clinic, including exacerbations and impaired access to medications,” said study co-author Brooks Kuhn, MD, co-director of UCDH’s Comprehensive COPD Clinic and medical director of UCDH’s Department of Respiratory Care, in a news release. “We wanted to do more than provide treatment after the fact. Through collaboration with our population health team, we built resources — and systems to deliver them at the right time — to support and educate high-risk patients, such as those with COPD and asthma, before and during wildfires, not after.”
The five-part approach includes:
- Identifying clinically at-risk and underserved patient populations using well-validated, condition-targeted registries
- Assembling multidisciplinary care teams to understand the needs of these communities and patients
- Creating custom analytics leveraging public health data to stratify wildfire risk
- Developing care pathways by disease, risk of exposure and health care access
- Identifying outcome measures tailored to interventions with a commitment to continuous, iterative improvement efforts.
Wildfire population health model to achieve preparedness in vulnerable communities.doi:10.15326/jcopdf.2024.0509