Results from the Maui Wildfire Exposure Study show health effects on surviving participants

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – Hundreds of families attended a special wellness festival at UH Maui College on Saturday to understand the impact of the August 2023 wildfires on their health.

The goal of the UH study is to help survivors take precautions and manage ongoing risks.

About 20% of the 1,200 Maui wildfire survivors who participated in a UH exposure study six months after the disaster had elevated levels of certain heavy metals in their bodies.

Researchers say this may be related to the higher frequency of health problems reported by participants, such as respiratory illnesses and high blood pressure.

And they could become sicker if they are re-exposed to a contaminated environment.

That’s one of the key findings from the latest analysis from the UH Maui Wildfire Exposure Study.

“We are trying to understand what this means and are educating individuals now so they can do something about it and implement best practices. PPE, for example, when they return to the burned zones even though they are reasonably cleaned and ready for reconstruction,” said UH JABSOM Professor Alika Maunakea.

Researchers shared individual results in multiple languages ​​and provided survivors with access to health resources such as air purifiers.

They also recruit more participants.

“Part of the study really wanted us to include children in the study so that we could understand how these potential effects on environmental exposures, but also on mental health, might later manifest in long-term health outcomes,” he said.

The aim is to identify potential early risk factors that could contribute to the development of diseases.

“We’re really trying to shed light on some of the gaps that we already knew about before the fires, and now with the fires there’s a new concern that there’s a greater need for integrated care for exposure-informed medicine, so we understand some of the health conditions, not only to treat them, but also to understand where they come from so that, as you know, we can prevent re-exposure or re-exposure to potential dangers that arise in other medical conditions for the broader community could manifest,” he said.

Researchers are continuing to analyze the data and plan to release a full report to secure federal and state funding and support from the healthcare sector, insurance providers and other stakeholders.

To sign up for the study, visit MauiWES.org.

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