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A recent study conducted jointly by a team of researchers at Harvard and Stanford University examining 2020 emergency room visits across California links wildfire smoke exposure to mental health related visits — with an outsized psychological toll particularly among women, youth, and racial and ethnic minorities.

Conducted by a team of environmental scientists and medical researchers, the study sheds light on the short-term mental health impacts of fine particulate matter from wildfires, known as PM2.5.

While the health hazards of air pollution are well documented, this research zeroed in specifically on wildfire smoke — a form of pollution that is increasingly common and intense due to climate change.

Using satellite data and a newly developed modeling system, researchers were able to isolate wildfire-specific PM2.5 from other pollution sources and track its effects on emergency room visits for mental health and psychiatric concerns.

Sam Heft-Neal, a senior research scholar at Stanford noted that pollution and poor air quality is “linked to poor mental health outcomes in a lot of settings.” But he added that wildfire smoke adds another layer of complexity to this issue — it travels far, and it’s much harder to regulate or prevent.

“Whenever we talk about the wildfire smoke, most people only think about the trauma,” said Youn Soo Jung, a research associate at the Harvard School of Public Health and the lead author of the paper.

“Wildfire smoke has more dangerous toxicity compared to the ambient air pollutants, and also the increases in those levels is really high,” she added. “So, we thought that acute exposure might definitely have an effect on mental health.”

The team’s findings confirmed this hypothesis and found a significant increase in psychiatric emergency visits on days with high concentrations of wildfire-related PM2.5, particularly for women, young children, and minority ethnic and racial groups.

The researchers found that a 10 microgram per cubic meter increase in smoke-related pollution was associated with a 15 percent rise in emergency visits for depression and a 29 percent increase for other mood-affective disorders.

Emergency department visits among women for depression and mood disorders rose significantly after exposure, as did visits among children and adolescents. Non-Hispanic Black individuals experienced a 135 percent increased risk for mood disorders, while Hispanic patients saw a 30 percent rise in depression-related visits.

In addition, the reason for visits to the emergency department varied largely among different demographics. Substance use was the top reason for emergency department visits among men, adults, and Medicaid or self-pay patients, while anxiety was most common among women, youth, and Hispanic individuals. Depression was the leading cause among children, and non-Hispanic Black individuals most frequently presented psychotic disorders.

“It’s really hard to stop wildfires, and so instead, the policy has been to help people to protect themselves,” Heft-Neal said.

“I think we’re at a lot of risk for different people having different abilities to protect themselves, and people kind of being left to fend for themselves with wildfire smoke, more so than even other types of pollution,” he added.

While the study is focused on short-term outcomes, its authors stressed the need for more work on long-term impacts.

“I think we, not only me, but other people, also believe that there will be definitely long term effects,” Jung said.