The skies over Michigan are finally clearing, at least for now, as the state emerges from yet another stretch of air quality alerts due to heavy, hazy smoke from Canadian wildfires.
But climate change means we’ll likely be here again, experts say, just like we were in the summer of 2023. And even healthy people are impacted by repeated exposure to wildfire smoke, said Dr. Ike Okereke, chief of thoracic surgery at Henry Ford Health, who researches the effects of air pollution.
“It affects us all, not only ‘patients’ or people with a history of disease,” he said.
That’s why it’s a good idea to avoid exercising or working outdoors when the air quality is bad, “because the faster and deeper you breathe, as you would with exercise or physical labor, you increase the amount of wildfire smoke you take into your body,” according to an advisory from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. “Likewise, the length of time you are outside increases the amount of smoke you are exposed to.”
You’ve also probably heard about groups that are “unusually sensitive” to wildfire smoke, including those with heart disease, asthma, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and vulnerable groups like kids, teens, adults over the age of 60, and pregnant people.
Those groups are more likely to feel immediate health effects: one study found asthma-related emergency room visits in New York shot up 80% during the worst of the 2023 wildfire smoke episodes.
“But we also know that if the air quality worsens enough, that everybody may be at risk,” said Dr. Daniel Ouellette, chief of pulmonary and critical care medicine at Henry Ford Health. “And in Detroit in the last week, there have been periods of time when the air wasn't safe for anyone, and everybody should take precautions.”
Even for healthy people, the fine particles of smoke pollution (called particulate matter 2.5, or PM2.5, which are also produced by industrial emissions and vehicle exhaust) can accumulate in our airways, irritating the lungs and potentially even changing our gene activity, which can lead to health problems.
“We are affected in the short term, [and] we are affected in the long term,” Okereke said. “It affects our vulnerability and risk of getting benign [non-cancerous] disease, but then also malignant disease.”
Take lung cancer, which is responsible for an estimated 25,000 deaths among non-smokers each year. Exposure to air pollution (including radon, asbestos, and fine particulates) plays a significant role, Okereke said.
“If you look at patients in Wayne County over the last several years, patients who were non-smokers and developed lung cancer tended to live in more polluted areas than smokers,” he said. “So living in a more polluted area probably puts you at risk of developing lung cancer, and that's on a long-term basis.”
And it may not take as long to develop these diseases as previously thought, he said. While experts used to think you needed decades of exposure to develop health issues years down the line, “now, it might be that you only need exposure for much less time, and that the disease takes only years and not decades to manifest itself, maybe in combination with other habits like smoking. So we know that the risks are probably higher.”
There’s also growing evidence that poor air quality is associated with mental health issues, too, including depression.
So what can you do?
By now, everyone’s heard the same advice: “When the air quality is bad, try to limit the amount of time outdoors,” Okereke said.
Of course, smoking or vaping inside means “you haven’t created a safe environment for yourself,” Dr. Ouellette said. So make “sure that your indoor environment has actually got clean air, and is properly safe.”
Keep windows closed at night, and use air conditioning with high-efficiency filters. (MDHHS has more about which filters to use here. And you can also find tips about creating do-it-yourself air filters here, here, and here.) Watch for symptoms like coughing, wheezing, or burning in your eyes or throat.
But just telling people to do that is like “putting a Band-Aid on the Titanic,” Okereke said. “That's what we can do in the short term, and on an individual level. But we have to have a call to action and change in policy, because this is going to get worse. This will not get better without change.”
For many, the wildfires are just an exacerbating issue. Detroit has consistently ranked as one of the worst cities in the U.S. to have asthma. “As a city overall, the exposure has to do with traffic density, population density, the number of factories and textiles in this area, the automotive industry, the number of businesses, construction, etc,” Okereke said.
In recent days, some Michigan lawmakers have blamed Canada for the wildfires, even as the White House tries to roll back the government’s ability to fight climate change. But it’s important to talk about these air quality issues — and the health problems they can trigger — in the context of those environmental threats, Okereke said.
“If there are enough people who cry out about this, I think hopefully we can make a dent, even if that's just at a state level.”
