Health Concerns with the Toxic Soup that is Wildfire Smoke

All Hazards

In this episode (#77) we talk with two experts on the dangers of exposure to wildfire smoke. Our guests are:

Sumi Hoshiko is an environmental epidemiologist with the Environmental Health Investigations Branch, Center for Healthy Communities, in the California Department of Public Health. She has conducted research on health effects related to climate change, including wildfires and heat waves. Just recently her research has been cited in a New York Times online article on the California wildfires. She is currently the principal investigator of a research study funded by CAL FIRE that will examine the public health impacts of prescribed fire. Other areas of work have involved investigation of a variety of environmental exposures and health conditions, including tobacco smoke, chromium, perchlorate, radiation, cancer clusters, and asthma. She holds a Master’s degree in Public Health from UC Berkeley and a bachelor’s degree from Oberlin College.

Janice Prudhomme is a Public Health Medical Officer (PHMO III) who works in the Environmental Health Investigations Branch (EHIB) within the Center for Community Health at the California Department of Public Health (CDPH). Dr. Prudhomme is trained in Internal Medicine and Board Certified in Occupational and Environmental Medicine, having completed a fellowship at UCSF and a Master’s degree in Public Health (MPH) at UC Berkeley. Following initial work in clinical occupational medicine, she transitioned to public health roughly 2 decades ago. She has served as a Public Health Medical Officer in the Occupational Health Branch at CDPH and subsequently led Cal/OSHA’s Medical Unit. She also served as the Branch Chief for EHIB from 2014-2015. Her interests and expertise are broad-based across many occupational and environmental topics and hazards, including infectious agents, chemical exposures and physical hazards, including heat stress and wildfire smoke exposures. Current projects include updating EHIB’s educational documents pertaining to wildfire smoke and the intersection with COVID-19.

For more information, resources and links go to oesnews.com/podcast and find this episode (#76).