To address the rapid changes in weather-related disasters amdist the climate crisis, particularly wildfires, emergency responders and local governments need to identify the structural inequities contributing to the health outcomes specifically associated with wildfires. Current research in the field identifies respiratory issues, particularly Asthma; particularly in indicators of Emergency Department and Hospital visits. While there is substantial research on the way that these outcomes are distributed by age, sex and SES factors, racial disparities are less researched. As such, this work aims to look at the impact of wildfires on racial/ethnic disparities in asthma hospitalization rates in California from 2016-2021. I formulated my hypothesis based on the literature that California counties with a predominantly Black or NBPOC demographic that were affected by the 2018-2019 wildfire season will have greater Asthma disparities predominantly white California counties. Using hospital admissions data pooled from the CDC's National Environmental Public Health Tracking Network data explorer tool, I will run an OLS regression model, a logit regression, in which I will use to estimate an MLE logistic model to explore how wildfires shape asthma outcomes differently based on their racial demographics. The findings of this project will contribute to the ways that policy-makers approach social vulnerability topics of environmental health in disaster situations induced by wildfires.
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Asthma Hospitalizaiton Dictionary here: https://ephtracking.cdc.gov/indicatorPages
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Census Demographic Dictionary here: https://ephtracking.cdc.gov/indicatorPages
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Queried Asthma Data source here: https://ephtracking.cdc.gov/DataExplorer/?query=1240f666-5d41-4627-b68c-6e082c640644
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Queried Racial Demographics Data Source here: https://ephtracking.cdc.gov/DataExplorer/?query=1240f666-5d41-4627-b68c-6e082c640644