Health IQ: Wildfire smoke and your health, children and IBD

How smoky skies can hurt your health

As Canada battles with hundreds of wildfires, many towns and cities are enveloped in dense smoke, triggering widespread alerts about deteriorating air quality.

When a wildfire burns, it releases pollutants into the air, which can be hazardous to human health in the short and long term.

The particles in wildfire smoke are tiny, but they tend to clump together when they travel. Fine particulate matter (PM2.5), one of the most concerning pollutants in wildfire smoke, poses the greatest threat to human health, according to Dr. Courtney Howard, an emergency physician in the Northwest Territories who is also a wildfire and health researcher.

Short-term exposure to smoke can cause sore and watery eyes, scratchy throat and a headache. Long-term effects can increase your risk of respiratory infections, asthma, heart problems and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) exacerbations, Howard said.

The health risks are especially heightened for vulnerable groups, like pregnant people.

In order to protect yourself, Howard recommends wearing an N95 mask when outside near the wildfire smoke, which does the best job of filtering out pollutant particles.

If the air quality index is reading high risk, Howard said, people should refrain from any outdoor activity and stay inside if possible.

She also recommended investing in a portable high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filter, which can remove smoke and pollutants from your home.

Read more here about how to stay safe during wildfire season and whether you can run your air conditioner when it’s smokey outside.

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is on the rise in Canada, especially among children.

That’s according to a 2023 report, released June 1 by Crohn’s and Colitis Canada, which found a surge of new cases of IBD among children under the age of six over the last five years.

IBD, which includes ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease, is a chronic inflammatory disorder of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. It can lead to debilitating symptoms such as diarrhea, rectal bleeding, abdominal pain, fatigue, weight loss and potentially life-threatening complications, according to the Canadian Digestive Health Foundation.

“We are seeing that the number of new diagnoses made year after year still continues to climb in children and adolescents with inflammatory bowel disease,” Dr. Gil Kaplan, gastroenterologist and professor at the University of Calgary, said.

As rates are increasing in children, experts like Kaplan aren’t exactly sure why. But there are theories.

Read more about why IBD is impacting children more than adults.

Although 89 per cent of family doctors send patient information to specialists, only about half receive information back on changes to patient care plans and medication, and less than 20 per cent receive a report within a week of the visit. About half of family doctors in Canada reported that coordinating referrals with specialists is a major problem.

“So if you’re trying to manage a patient’s care and change their medical plan, or keep on top of changing their medications and anything that a specialist wants family practitioners to continue to follow up on, it’s harder to do without timely information,” Tracy Johnson, director of Health System Analytics at CIHI, told Global News.

“Fax machines, mail and paper-based systems are inefficient,” Johnson said. “So part of the drive towards digital and electronic communications should improve our efficiency within primary health care as well as the whole health care system. It will also decrease redundancy.”