Wildland firefighting culture often avoids fertility topics, but a study assessing wildfire smoke’s impact on semen drew strong interest from firefighters. A student researcher recruited 144 wildland firefighters to provide semen samples before, during, and after fire seasons. The work aims to clarify smoke’s health consequences and support protections for firefighters and others. The study will add to growing research on how wildfire smoke affects human fertility, an area that has received less attention than pregnancy outcomes. Climate change is increasing wildfire frequency, and infertility affects a large share of people worldwide. Recent poor air quality episodes in the Pacific Northwest show extremely high smoke exposure levels, raising concerns for fertility health.
"“After you get over the stigma of talking about fertility, somewhat of a taboo subject in our community,” Kehoe said, “these firefighters are concerned with the ability to conceive.”"
"Kehoe helped recruit 144 wildland firefighters to submit pre-, mid- and post-fire season semen samples over the past year. He hopes that his work helps lead to a greater understanding of smoke's health consequences, as well as more protections for wildland firefighters and others."
"When it's published later this year or the next, the firefighter study will join a new body of research on how wildfire smoke influences human fertility. In comparison to smoke's effects on pregnancies, it's a topic that's been understudied. But with climate change causing more fires, especially in the West, and infertility affecting 1 in 6 people worldwide, interest in the field is growing."
"SEVERAL RECENT STUDIES INVOLVE EPISODES OF POOR AIR QUALITY in the Pacific Northwest. Portlanders, for example, suffered from 10 days of severe smoke from nearby wildfires in 2020. At the time, the city's air quality index, or AQI, almost went off the current scale altogether, with ratings near 500- the highest and most dangerous level, indicating a health seriou"
Read at High Country News
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]