Air Health Our Health

This episode wraps up the third season of the podcast. - Please e-mail me over the summer at airhealthourhealth@gmail.com to let me know what you want to hear in future episodes! - Listen to previous episodes, and over the summer, commit to trying one action from any of the prior episode show notes to work towards cleaner air in your community! - Share the podcast with a friend or family member, and rate it on your podcasting software so others can find it! - Enjoy your summer, and I'll be back in the Fall! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For more information, go to airhealthourhealth.org. Follow and comment on Facebook page and Instagram.  Record a question or comment on the podcast site or send an e-mail via the website. 

Dr. Neeta Thakur is a pulmonary and critical care physician at the University of California San Francisco, where she serves as the Medical Director of the San Francisco General Hospital Chest Clinic, and studies how social and environmental stress negatively affect people suffering from asthma and COPD.  She is working hard to help us understand the history of race adjustment in lung function testing and what we should do going forward to provide better health for all.  To Do: 1- To learn more about the history of air pollution’s impact on health, you can go back to the first season for a host of episodes. For example, podcast Episode 2 with Dr. Matt Drake and Episode 17 with Dr. Ritz. Learn about how red-lining can affect those asthma risk in Episode 27 with Prof. Shandas. 2- I am serious about the importance of hope! Learn more about how policy can work- listen to Episode 12 about cleaning up diesel school buses with Dr. Adar and Episode 16 with the American Lung Association’s analysis of the economic stimulus and decrease in asthma we might see with a transition to electric vehicles 3- Listen about one person’s story with asthma growing up in a previously red-lined district by listening to Ashia Allen, a patient of mine. 4- For more about air pollution and air toxics in the Portland Metro area, listen to Episode 5 with Mary Peveto and Episode 7 with Prof. Linda George 5- If you haven’t read “The Fire Next Time,” be sure to do so. If you are in healthcare and care for those with respiratory illness, “Breathing Race into the Machine” is certainly worth reading. 6- Finally, consider a donation to the American Thoracic Society, which works tirelessly for clean air and has funded research like that done by Dr. Thakur early in her career. Full disclosure, I volunteer as a member of the ATS Environmental Health Policy Committee. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Visit blog post for more information, or go to airhealthourhealth.org. Follow and comment on Facebook page and Instagram.  Record a question or comment on the podcast site or send an e-mail via the website. 

So many people begin their cigarette or e-cigarette addiction by using mint flavors such as menthol. Why is this? What does it do? To answer that question on the pod today, I talk to Dr. Sven Jordt PhD, who is a scientist at Duke who studies menthol and shares his own journey with cigarette addiction and empathizes with the difficulty of quitting. He also is a member of the Tobacco Action Committee of the American Thoracic Society. Menthol numbs the lungs to let you inhale more toxins and not realize how irritating the chemicals you are inhaling are. This fuels new nicotine addictions. The tobacco industry is trying to get around flavor bans by making chemicals with this property but without the flavor smell. It also turns out that the chemicals that go into an e-cigarette are not the only chemicals that come out after all those chemicals have been sitting in the device at room temperature and mixing over time.  Flavors, especially menthol, are designed to mask the harshness and danger of inhaled nicotine.  So what can you do? To hear more about Carrie’s story and about a county trying to protect its youth, listen to “A County vs Big Tobacco” from last season. Talk to your local or state policymakers to see if you can introduce a comprehensive flavor ban in your county or state. Don’t forget to include those new synthetic compounds that numb the lungs like mint but try to escape the “flavor” label!  For more on the history of menthol and its targeting of children in general and the black community in particular, listen to the episode  “A Heartbreaking Trap” with youth pastor Ritney Castine. For more on the odd shapes of e-cigs designed to be hidden in schools, you can look at the Tobacco Education Resource Library.  To learn how to talk to young people in your life about e-cigarettes, listen to the first episode from this season, #DotheVapeTalk. You can also go to talkaboutvaping.org  for more resources.  If you already use a flavored or menthol inhaled tobacco device and think it’s finally time to quit, check out the “Quit, Don’t Switch” campaign from the American Lung Association for other resources to help quit smoking. Finally, please consider a donation to the American Lung Association, who employs wonderful people like Carrie, fighting hard to rid our communities of the scourge of Big Tobacco. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Visit blog post for more information, or go to airhealthourhealth.org. Follow and comment on Facebook page and Instagram. Record a question or comment on the podcast site or send an e-mail via the website. 

Today on the podcast, I provide a bit of the history of the Air Health Our Health podcast, why I started it, and what ties it all together. I hope you can use this as a guide to catch up on topics of interest, find podcasts that may be of use to you, and pick an action item or two to make the air in your community cleaner. FYI- the episode art is part of a selfie my sister sent me while wearing an Air Health Our Health T-shirt while her town was blanketed in unhealthy air from wildfires. To Do- 1- Twitchy Airways Clubs Members- learn about how the air you breathe affects your health and what you can do to keep your airways open. 2- Rate and review this podcast in whatever software you use. It helps spread the word. 3- Tell a friend about the podcast and share it to help more people learn about the importance of clean air. 4- Pick an episode and look at the “To Do” items for ideas on making you or your community more healthy. 5- Purchase an Air Health Our Health mug, T-shirt, tote, water bottle or more to spread the word about healthy air- find the items on the website under the “Invest-Stuff” tab. Proceeds go to clean up the air. 6- Consider a donation to the American Lung Association, who continues to fight for clean air. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Visit blog post for more information, or go to airhealthourhealth.org. Follow and comment on Facebook page and Instagram. Record a question or comment on the Anchor podcast site or send an e-mail via the website.

We think that if a flavor is safe to eat, it is safe to inhale. This is sadly not true, but many e-cigarette users, especially kids, think that if something is fruity-flavored and being sold to them, it must be safe. It is often not. Join me in this podcast episode to hear from Professor Ilona Jaspers, PHD, of the departments of pediatrics, microbiology and immunology, environmental sciences and engineering at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is also the director there for the curriculum in toxicology and environmental medicine. She studies a host of toxins that affect the lungs, from air pollution to inhaling flavoring chemicals. 1- If you have a young person in your life age 10 and up, listen to the first episode from the season, #DotheVapeTalk to learn about how to have these conversations. You can also go to talkaboutvaping.org  for more resources. You can learn more about what different e-cigarettes might look like here. 2- If you are struggling to quit inhaling nicotine, whether from combustible or electronic cigarettes, check out the “Quit, Don’t Switch” campaign from the American Lung Association for other resources to help quit smoking. 3- If you really don’t want to or can’t quit, and want to try an e-cigarette for potential harm reduction, in general avoid inhaling flavored ones if possible. 4- Read the “Get the Facts” guide from the ALA. If you want more details on the specifics of e-cigarette biology, listen to the “Gambling with your lungs” episode with Dr. Jeff Gotts from Season One. 5- If you want to get involved on the policy side, listen to the “A Teen Talks Vaping” episode about tobacco retail licensing and ensure there is robust tobacco retail licensing in your community. 6- For more on the dangers of flavors and their history, especially among kids and in the black community, listen to “A Heartbreaking Trap” and “A County vs Big Tobacco.” You can learn more about the specifics of flavor dangers at airhealthourhealth.org/FlavorFree. 7- Don't forget to donate to the American Lung Association, who  is working hard to help people understand how to break free of nicotine. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Visit blog post for more information, or go to airhealthourhealth.org. Follow and comment on Facebook page and Instagram. Record a question or comment on the Anchor podcast site or send an e-mail via the website.

Ozone is a highly reactive gas and forms a significant portion of the air pollution that affects all of us. For this episode, I was joined by Dr. Nicholas Nassikas of Harvard University to discuss the links between ozone and health, as well as to review the staggering amount of money we are spending in terms of the health toll of air pollution. We are spending more on the health toll of air pollution now than the cost of transitioning off of fossil fuels to help decrease the pollution we all breathe. Listen and learn! What can you do? 1- Download the Airnow app or go to the airnow.gov website to become familiar with the Air Quality index, which incorporates ozone and PM2.5. 2- To learn more about PM2.5 standards and history, listen to the “What’s in a Standard” episode with Dan Costa from Season Two. 3- For more on how to use the Air Quality Index, listen to the “What’s in an Index” episode with Dr. Franziska Rosser from last season. 4- Vote for elected officials committed to addressing climate change. Write to them regularly about your concern regarding topics like ozone, which causes disease and can increase in the setting of rising temperatures. 5- Advocate for policies in your communities that can reduce ozone by decreasing use of combustion for transportation, such as more bike lanes, public transit, increased walkability and more. 6- Consider a donation to the American Lung Association, who advocates tirelessly for clean air. 7- Consider buying an Air Health Our Health T-shirt, mug, hat or tote that emphasizes the health benefits of clean air. This can help spark a conversation with those in your community. Proceeds go to the American Lung Association as well. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Visit blog post for more information, or go to airhealthourhealth.org. Follow and comment on Facebook page and Instagram. Record a question or comment on the Anchor podcast site or send an e-mail via the website.

I was fortunate to speak with Dr. Gillian Goobie of the Center for Heart Lung Innovation at St Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver as well as the Division of Respiratory Medicine at the University of British Columbia. She is the lead author on a groundbreaking paper exploring the risk of death from exposure to air pollution as well as the source of the pollution, and how it changes the risk to those breathing it. We talk about everything from the different pollution sources in more industrially exposed areas to pollution sources in areas affected by wildfire, what to do with the knowledge of this risk, how it can affect those who are most vulnerable with lung scarring or pulmonary fibrosis, and more! She also shares her gratitude for the people who participate in this trial and so many others. They help us understand more about the world around https://airhealthourhealth.org/whats-burning-pollution-sources-and-lung-scarring-with-dr-gillian-goobie/us! So what can you do? 1- Download the AirNow.gov app and become familiar with it. 2- To learn more about PM2.5 standards and history, listen to the “What’s in a Standard” episode with Dan Costa from Season Two. 3- For more on how to use the Air Quality Index, listen to the “What’s in an Index” episode with Dr. Franziska Rosser from last season. 4- For those in the West, particularly affected by PM2.5 and wildfire smoke, listen to the “Our Health in Wildfire Season” episode from Season Two and the “Air Inside when the smoke is outside” episode with Prof Elliot Gall from Season One. 5- Finally, consider a donation to the American Thoracic Society, whose scientific membership includes clinician-scientists like Dr. Goobie who do such important research and work hard  to highlight the importance of clean air. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Visit blog post for more information, or go to airhealthourhealth.org. Follow and comment on Facebook page and Instagram. Record a question or comment on the Anchor podcast site or send an e-mail via the website.

Can we fight fire with fire? The American Lung Association has released a report suggesting that this is a healthy way forward, and our Native communities have used ceremonial burns on our lands for generations. I wanted to talk to someone who lives at the intersection of all of this.  For this episode, I was honored to be joined by Bodie Shaw. He is a member of the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Indian Reservation, and previously served as the national wildland fire director for the Bureau of Indian Affairs and has worked as the acting Chief of the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, ID. He is a veteran of the US Air Force, and previously taught at Oregon State University. He has lectured widely on tribal interests as they pertain to natural resource management. In 2008, Shaw was the first to participate in an international exchange program between the U.S. and Australian governments and lived Down Under with his family from August 2008 to March 2009 while developing a new trilateral wildland fire/bushfire agreement between the U.S., Australia and New Zealand. He currently serves as the Bureau of Indian Affairs deputy regional director of Trust Services for the Northwest Region. Today, we talk about balancing the perils and the promise of prescribed burns in wildfire-prone areas. To Do Got to Firewise.org to learn how to protect your home and family. Learn more about health impacts from prescribed burns from the ALA report “Can Prescribed Fires Mitigate Health Harm.” Tell your representatives how important it is to ensure a professional and well-funded, year round proactive approach to decreasing the risk of catastrophic wildfire. Learn more about the health of our wildland firefighters and outdoor workers by listening to “The Health of Our Heroes” episode from Season One. Learn more about the impact of wildfire smoke and how to keep you and your family safe during smoke events by listening to the “Our Health in Wildfire Season” episode from Season Two. Donate to the American Lung Association who works hard to help navigate challenging health concerns such as their evaluation of health effects of prescribed burns. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Visit blog post for more information, or go to airhealthourhealth.org. Follow and comment on Facebook page and Instagram. Record a question or comment on the Anchor podcast site or send an e-mail via the website.

The loud drone of gas powered lawn equipment is often part of the background noise in any community, but what do these machines cost us in terms of our health, the health of our children, and especially, the health of those who use these machines professionally? It turns out, they cost us a great deal. Today I am joined by two doctors for children to talk about the impact of these machines in terms of their noise, emissions, and more. Dr. Elliot Krane, MD   joined the faculty of Stanford University in 1994 as the Chief of Pediatric Anesthesiology and is currently the chief of pain management.  Dr. David Axelrod, MD is a professor of medicine at Stanford University in the division of pediatric cardiology who has developed the Stanford Virtual Heart to teach about heart disease in children.  We talk about two stroke engines, why they emit as much in a 30 minute period as a Ford F150 driving for 64 hours, and the impact on all of us, especially professional landscapers and their families. We also talk about potential equitable community solutions. Imagine, less noise and pollution and better health for all! So what can you do? 1- If you are using gas powered lawn equipment, look into mechanical or electric alternatives, like an electric lawn mower or a good old fashioned rake. Learn more about the Ford F150 vs leafblower analysis here. 2- With climate change and increasing water scarcity as well as the need to avoid additional pollution, look into whether maintaining a grass lawn is really worth it in your area. There are often a host of alternatives that require less mowing and maintenance. 3- Consider getting together with neighbors to retire gas powered equipment and obtain your own or shared electric equipment. My personal goal is to work on reaching out to my own neighbors this fall to see if they would be interested. 4- Advocate in your own neighborhood, county, city or state to put programs in place to retire gas powered lawn equipment while ensuring those whose livelihoods depend on yard care are not penalized. For example, equipment swaps, purchasing and retiring old equipment, vouchers and grants for new equipment, etc are all options to consider. 5- Finally, consider a donation to the American Thoracic Society, who works tirelessly on research into the air we breathe, how it affects our health, and informing policy makers to make health-centered policy. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Visit blog post for more information, or go to airhealthourhealth.org. Follow and comment on Facebook page and Instagram. Record a question or comment on the Anchor podcast site or send an e-mail via the website.

Welcome to Season Three of the Air Health Our Health podcast! It is back to school season, and across the country, kids will be exposed to vaping and e-cigarette devices from their peers. About 1-2 kids per middle school class and around 5 kids per high school classroom will be using e-cigarettes. These devices can look like pens, USBs and more, so you want your kid to be prepared when they encounter these in the classroom or in the school yard or on the bus. The American Lung Association has released a very helpful guide on how to talk to kids 10 and over about vaping and e-cigarettes, and I walk through it today on the podcast so you can be prepared! So what should you be doing? 1- Do you have a kid in your life 10 and up? Go to talkaboutvaping.org and talk to other important grownups in their lives about having the Vape Talk. 2- Read the “Get the Facts” guide from the ALA. If you want more details on the specifics of e-cigarettes, listen to the “Gambling with your lungs” episode from Dr. Jeff Gotts. 3-  Read the ALA’s Vaping Conversation guide, and practice having a vape conversation with teens in your life. Share how important this is with the #DotheVapeTalk. 4- If you want to get involved on the policy side, listen to the “A Teen Talks Vaping” episode about tobacco retail licensing and ensure there is robust tobacco retail licensing in your community. 5- For more on the dangers of flavors and their history, especially among kids and in the black community, listen to “A Heartbreaking Trap” and “A County vs Big Tobacco.” You can learn more about the specifics of flavor dangers at airhealthourhealth.org/FlavorFree. 6- Raise your voice about the importance of flavor bans, secret shopper enforcement programs and more. We all pay for the long-term health impacts of e-cigarette addiction! Go to the post for this episode airhealthourhealth.org/dothevapetalk for links and more information! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Visit blog post for more information, or go to airhealthourhealth.org. Follow and comment on Facebook page and Instagram. Record a question or comment on the Anchor podcast site or send an e-mail via the website.