YSPH Climate Change and Health Seminar, “Estimating population exposure and the health effects of wildfire smoke in the U.S.,” with Dr. Yang Liu

Abstract: Wildland fires pose a growing environmental and public health challenge, driven by climate change, changing land use practices, and human activities. Beyond their immediate threats to human life and infrastructure, wildfires generate large amounts of smoke that degrade air quality and expose populations to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and gaseous pollutants, contributing to both acute and chronic health risks. Emerging evidence links wildfire smoke exposure not only to respiratory morbidity but also to adverse cardiovascular and mental health outcomes, with older adults, children, and socioeconomically disadvantaged communities facing disproportionate risks. This presentation will introduce key principles and recent advances in wildfire smoke exposure modeling, highlighting how high-resolution exposure estimates can support epidemiological investigations. Using examples from studies of the U.S. Medicare population, it will demonstrate how these exposure data can improve our understanding of the associations between wildfire smoke and adverse cardiovascular outcomes. These advances are essential for strengthening public health preparedness, informing evidence-based policies, and protecting vulnerable populations from the growing health burden of wildfires.

Bio: Dr. Yang Liu received his PhD in environmental science and engineering and postdoc training in environmental health from Harvard University. He is the Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Gangarosa Department of Environmental Health at the Rollins School of Public Health of Emory University. His work focuses on developing data-driven methods and scalable frameworks to understand how environmental exposures affect human health, with a focus on air pollution, extreme weather, and non-communicable diseases. He is a science team member of the NASA EVI-3 MAIA mission and a member of the NASA Health and Air Quality Applied Science Team. In addition, he directs the NIH-funded Climate & Health Actionable Research and Translation (CHART) Center. He has been a Clarivate Global Highly Cited Researcher since 2019.