Climate change and public health in California: A structured review of exposures, vulnerable populations, and adaptation measures.

California faces several serious direct and indirect climate exposures that can adversely affect public health, some of which are already occurring. The public health burden now and in the future will depend on atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations, underlying population vulnerabilities, and adaptation efforts. Here, we present a structured review of recent literature to examine the leading climate risks to public health in California, including extreme heat, extreme precipitation, wildfires, air pollution, and infectious diseases.

Mortality attributable to PM from wildland fires in California from 2008 to 2018.

In California, wildfire risk and severity have grown substantially in the last several decades. Research has characterized extensive adverse health impacts from exposure to wildfire-attributable fine particulate matter (PM), but few studies have quantified long-term outcomes, and none have used a wildfire-specific chronic dose-response mortality coefficient. Here, we quantified the mortality burden for PM exposure from California fires from 2008 to 2018 using Community Multiscale Air Quality modeling system wildland fire PM estimates.