Ecology North gets $130K to study health costs of forest fire smoke

An environmental non-profit group based in Yellowknife has received $130,000 from Health Canada to study the costs of forest fire smoke on N.W.T.'s health care system.

Ecology North received money for the study from Health Canada's Program for Climate Change and Health Adaptation in Northern First Nation and Inuit Communities.

"[Climate change] hits people in the pocket book and government in the pocket book," says Craig Scott, the project's manager.

"There's very little scientific research in terms of how forest fire smoke impacts people's health."

Doctors working on the project will compare medical and pharmacy records over a three-year period, specifically looking for increases in the number of emergency room visits and prescriptions for respiratory illnesses.

Samuel Bourget of Yellowknife says his family was definitely affected during last summer's unprecedented forest fire season. His wife, who has asthma, and their newborn baby spent most of last summer indoors.

"If we were outside more than 15 minutes when the smoke was heavy, my wife had to use her inhaler."

ER visits increase

Courtney Howard, a Yellowknife physician who's working on the study, says the health effects last summer showed up about seven to 10 days after heavy smoke rolled into the city.

"One day in particular everyone who came into [the ER] had asthma," she said.

"A lot of people were there three, four hours. A lot of people we were not able to get out until their steroids kicked in. And it seems like over the course of the summer, everyone got bumped up a notch of severity."

Howard says each emergency room visit can cost the health care system hundreds of dollars.

Ecology North's study will also look at how air quality issues due to smoke affected people's day to day lives, including mental health.

Researchers will ask people in the Yellowknives Dene communities and Kakisa to make video recordings of their experience with smoke last summer. Howard says they'll be asked how the smoke affected their traditional activities and what they ate during the summer.

Ecology North expects to receive its research licence later this month and present results from the research by next winter.