A free online course aims to increase public understanding of the health impacts of bushfires and bushfire smoke, with a focus on how to reduce exposure, reports Dr Sharon Campbell, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Environmental Health Research Unit, Menzies Institute for Medical Research, University of Tasmania.
Sharon Campbell writes:
It seems the last two summers have been all about water. Record-breaking and catastrophic flooding on the east coast of Australia has cost billions of dollars and destroyed entire communities. This coming summer, forecasts of further rain continue; however, this time falling on saturated soils and in towns where recovery has barely begun.
But a mere three years ago, Australia’s eastern seaboard was at the beginning of the biggest megafire event recorded since colonisation. The 2019/20 Black Summer fires burnt over nine million hectares, directly caused the loss of 33 lives, and the smoke generated by this event is estimated to have contributed to the premature deaths of over 400 people.
The reality is that a warming climate will see a greater variation in weather patterns driven by opposing La Nina and El Nino forces…meaning a switch from floods to fires and back again is likely to continue.
Importantly for bushfires, there is also the growing threat of increased activity in autumn and winter, making our bushfire preparation season even smaller. The recent MJA-Lancet Countdown report for Australia describes the increasing population exposure risk to extreme fire danger conditions.
Understanding the impacts of these events, and what we can do to reduce our risk, is key to coping and building resilience.
But this doesn’t happen overnight, and can take an investment in time and money to build knowledge, understanding and resources. To be as effective as possible, this investment needs to happen across all levels of government and community sectors, right down to households and individuals.
New course
One of the key messages from Black Summer was that while many individuals recognised the broad risks directly associated with bushfires, the risks of bushfire smoke were far less understood. Confusion over the meaning of numbers, scales and suitable health-promoting actions was widespread. People with greater sensitivity to smoke needed to know what to do.
This is why the Environmental Health Research team at the Menzies Institute for Medical Research (University of Tasmania) developed the new online short course called ‘Bushfires and Your Health’.
This free course is available to anyone in Australia; although it focuses on Tasmanian resources, these can be used anywhere.
The aim of the course is to help people increase their knowledge of bushfires, bushfire smoke, and how these impact your health. Most importantly, the course steers participants through the noisy space of what to actually do, using evidence-informed and practical solutions to reduce smoke exposure.
The course suits a range of learning styles by incorporating text, videos, lectures, interviews and graphics, while encouraging participants to undertake short activities and quizzes to consolidate their learning. Excitingly, plans are underway to provide critical course information to several language groups, for distribution in written and audio format.
Just completing an online course is not the full answer – we need urgent and greater awareness across all levels of government and community of the escalating health risks of a changing climate, including the impacts of natural disasters such as bushfires, heatwaves and floods.
The recent announcement of funding for a National Strategy on Climate Change and Health is welcome news indeed, as is the creation of the Healthy Environments and Lives research network.
See Croakey’s archive of articles on bushfires and health
