How air pollution can impact your health

[00:00:00]From air quality concerns to summer heat waves, there are things you can do to stay protected this season. Let's talk more about that with Dr. Nicola Mercer, the medical officer of health in Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph. Dr. Mercer, thanks for your time as always.

[00:00:13]>> Well, thank you for having me.

[00:00:15]>> Let's start with the air quality. We are seeing some improvements now this week compared to what we saw last week, but what have your main concerns been about how the wildfire smoke is impacting our air quality here?

[00:00:28]>> Well, last week was certainly memorable for those people who are in the area. It was really significant. We were in the orange area, which is 10 plus on the air quality. And if people wonder how you know that, anybody who has an app on their phone or on their computer can go to the that app and it will tell you what the air quality is, and it's based on a color system. But we were really bad last week, especially Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of last week with air quality readings of 10 plus. And what that means is that the amount of particles in the air, I mean, you could actually see them on some of those days last week. The air looked orange.

[00:01:05]That's not always the case. Sometimes you can't see them, but in last week we could. The higher the number of these particles that are in the air, they actually go into your lungs and they can lodge in your lungs. And for those people who are well and healthy, they're not smokers, that might have been more like irritation. If you wore contacts, you might have noticed that your eyes were dry or irritated, but generally you do okay. But for people who have underlying lung disease, the very young infants in particular or the elderly, it could be the difference between breathing well and actually having a visit to your physician or even worse to the emergency room. So it really does impact health.

[00:01:45]>> Yeah, I think we were all noticing the impact of it last week for sure. Let's also talk about excessive heat because we have already seen a couple of heat events this summer. How can people best keep themselves protected?

[00:01:59]>> Yeah, and when you combine heat and air quality, that can make this a double whammy. And we had some really hot and some really bad days last week.

[00:02:08]So, when it comes to heat, like today is not too bad, but you can guarantee that we're going to have other hot days, and we may actually have other days where the air quality is poor. And some of the same information applies to both. So, when it comes to heat or air quality, you need to know your limit. You need to know your family, those around you, whether it's your children, whether it's your parents or grandparents, make sure that they are safe. So, for very high heat days, we really do tell people don't try to be outside during the hottest parts points of the day. So, sort of between 11:00 and 2:00 is really hot. Unfortunately, for some people, if you're an outdoor worker, perhaps you do have to be outside. So, we recommend number one, that to try and find the shade, wear appropriate clothing, and hats to keep you cool. If you are out walking and you need to walk, you can use a a sun shade, a parasol to try and keep the sun off you. And of course, you need to stay well hydrated. If you have infants, in particular, or young children, they don't always know that it's too hot for them to be outside.

[00:03:12]Please keep a close eye on them, keep your children out of the sun, especially during the hot hot parts of the day. Keep them well protected with sunscreen and with hats, but in particular, don't let them stay outside for too long if it's really hot, and keep them well hydrated. And of course, for those who don't have air conditioning, this makes it a double whammy, especially if you have to be indoors, air quality's poor, and you got to keep your windows and doors closed.

[00:03:38]So, some of the things you can do is if you have a fan, obviously, in a fan, cool wet compresses or or cold showers, and then sitting in front of a fan. But if you have neighbors, family, people that you know that don't have air conditioning, please keep an eye on them because in extremely hot weather and when they're having to keep their windows closed, um they can get really hot and they can be unwell.

[00:04:02]>> Yeah, certainly.

[00:04:04]Um Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health has some tools that might actually help people out as well. You've launched a climate safety map. Can you tell us more about how it works?

[00:04:14]>> Yeah, so for the Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph area, uh we thought it was important to have one place where people could go to if they wanted to find a place uh where it was too hot to be at home, so they could go there, uh a place where they could cool down, a place where they could actually get get better air to breathe. So, we've created a site. You can just go to our website and look at climate safe. Uh just put that into the search function, you'll easily find it, and it lists all the places like cooling centers, libraries, public areas, places where you can go to get out of the heat or to get out of the poor air quality.

[00:04:50]>> Okay, a great resource to use this summer. Dr. Mercer, thanks so much for your time.

[00:04:55]>> And thank you so much for having me.