Clean Air Day A Reminder of San Diego's Not So Clean Air

Speaker 1: 00:00 Today is clean air day, a day, to focus on the air. We breathe, how it affects our health and what we can do to keep it clean. This year. Our awareness is heightened by the weeks of smoke drifting from wildfires that have hung over the County. We had unhealthy smoke billowing over the South Bay, after the fire on the USS Bon Rashard. And of course climate change is affecting everything here to give us a better understanding. How about how changing air quality is affecting us is dr. Bruce Buckeye and OB GYN, who is on the climate action campaigns, board of directors, and is a volunteer with the American lung association. Dr. Bocco welcome to the show. Great to be with you. You say that it's a misnomer that because we live by the ocean, we have pretty good air quality. Talk to us about Speaker 2: 00:44 Everything's relative. I guess I grew up in Los Angeles in the San Fernando Valley and the air was something you could see on many, many days out of the year, and it definitely hurt our lungs as kids running around. So the air seems clean in coastal environments in San Diego most of the time. But in fact, we have data for instance, from the state of the air report, from the American lung association, which they put out every year that shows that Southern California in San Diego specifically is in the top 10 worst areas in the country for two very important types of air pollutants, both ozone and fine particulate matter PM 2.5, which are very serious health risks, and also tightly related to the climate crisis. So they're increasing Speaker 1: 01:28 In general. Talk about how poor air quality affects our health, Speaker 2: 01:32 Poor air quality in particular, uh, ozone and fine particulate matter have access to the bloodstream and they directly affect inflammatory processes. We're hearing a lot about that now with COVID, uh, infections that, that COVID elicits a, an intense inflammatory reaction in the lungs, which can be deadly and often is. So that's one example of the inflammation aspect of air pollutants that can cause adverse health effects. In addition, we know that asthma attacks in children and adults are often triggered by elevated levels of air pollution. Speaker 1: 02:08 Well, now there are these apps notice that can tell us exactly what the air quality is like is our neighborhood in our neighborhood. You know, uh, for example, the purple air app tells us the, the, the particles per million. What are we to make of readings that show particles per million, like today, they're showing over a hundred in many parts of the County. Speaker 2: 02:27 These readings tend to fluctuate, but, uh, it is really important that we have access to this information. There are air quality monitoring stations across the state, but basically the higher, the number, certainly when it gets over a hundred, uh, the more people that are going to be effected, whether or not they can tell the air is polluted. Uh, that's why apps like this and information on the air quality is really important for people. Again, especially if they fit into the vulnerable groups of the elderly people with preexisting and lung conditions, uh, people that are chronically ill children, uh, anyone with asthma and as our recent study would suggest, uh, pregnant women Speaker 1: 03:09 A little bit more about your research on how it affects pregnant. Yeah, Speaker 2: 03:13 I was very fortunate, uh, as an OB GYN to be able to connect with some other climate minded scientists who actually have a background in research, and we ended up doing the, what has become the first ever large scale review of common climate change type exposures heat. And these two types of air pollutants we've been talking about and adverse pregnancy outcomes in the U S uh, the journal of American medical association published our findings in mid June. And what we were able to show was that 57 out of 68 studies showed a very strong, significant association between those exposures heat and the air pollutants that we've been talking about and bad birth outcome. Speaker 1: 03:54 So how can people make use of any data they have about air quality, uh, to make decisions about their daily lives? You know, um, possibly for someone who's pregnant or someone who has young children, you know, what's a good day to take the kids to the park, for example, how should it affects our daily lives? Speaker 2: 04:12 I think we're still learning how to answer that question, but at its most basic level, it's not a bad idea to get in the habit of, of checking with that app and looking at it to see, uh, what the air quality is like in your town, your place, where you live or work. And then certainly if you're in one of those vulnerable groups that we were talking about, uh, modifying your activities, spending less time outdoors, more time inside where there is hopefully cleaner air. That's not always the case, but it, it, uh, should I think, uh, make us more prone to use this information, to reduce our exposures. And then if you have an elderly parents, certainly somebody with COPD or preexisting heart disease to be in touch with them and also make, uh, recommendations to them about trying to avoid exposures on a particular day or being more attentive to when these symptoms discomfort they may have, or shortness of breath, so that you can be more on top of making sure they get the care that they need on those days of unhealthy air quality. Speaker 1: 05:12 If you have one of these apps that tells you the parts per million, uh, what would you say is a, a level at which you start as a doctor to be getting concerned about the average person Speaker 2: 05:22 Somewhere between a hundred and 150? Uh, I don't think the science is fully worked out, uh, exactly how to quantify the risk, but I think that the higher, the number, certainly the more precautions, the more attention we should be paying to this. And I think there's a bigger point to be made as well. We are seeing again in Southern California, a lot of unhealthy air days, and we shouldn't be fooled just because we live in a coastal city that we're free from this. And I think that there are a number of things that we can do to help improve the air quality, both indoors and outdoors. Some of it is personal actions and some of it also is community-wide. Uh, and I think it's really important for us to engage in this topic more, more than just from the perspective of trying to limit our personal exposures and those people in our family, and think of the larger picture and the opportunity that exists for us to, to make air quality better over the longterm for everyone's sake, Speaker 1: 06:19 Before we get to what we can do to make the air quality better. I want to ask you as a doctor, how concerned have you been about the effects of the smoke from the wildfires drifting through our region? Speaker 2: 06:29 I'm very concerned. Uh, the pollutants that come from wildfires they're are particularly noxious things like carbon monoxide, which is a odorless colorless, poisonous gas, ozone, and fine particulates. And other toxics that come with wildfires are polite enough to stay within range of the fire itself. They often travel tens or even hundreds of miles from where the fires are burning. So many people are affected, even if they're nowhere near the actual danger of the fire. It's Speaker 1: 06:58 No, the San Diego association of governments held a webinar last week, asking people to take an honor pledge to help clean the air. You know, SANDAG is a, is a transit agency. So they're focused on getting people out of their cars and, and taking public transit or biking. But what else can we do to help the quality of the air that we breathe? Speaker 2: 07:17 If we can eventually move housing more to a centralized plan, as opposed to being so spread out there's less transportation needed. Um, making public transportation more affordable and accessible is important, not sitting idling in your car for 30 minutes while you catch up on all your texts would be a great habit that we could all get into. Speaker 1: 07:37 Well, thank you so much for your perspective on this. We've been speaking with dr. Bruce Becker, who is an OB GYN, uh, and active with the climate action campaigns, board of directors, dr. Becker, thank you so much. Thanks for having me.