TOPLINE:

Among older adults in the western United States, exposure to high concentrations of smoke-related fine particulate matter (PM2.5) was associated with increased rates of hospitalizations for respiratory diseases, with weaker but suggestive ties to cardiovascular hospitalizations.

METHODOLOGY:

Researchers carried out a retrospective cohort study to analyze the association between exposure to smoke-specific PM2.5 and cause-specific hospitalizations in older adults in the United States.

They used inpatient claims data of 10,369,361 Medicare beneficiaries (mean age, 74.7 years; 53.1% women) across 11 western United States during wildfire seasons from 2006 to 2016, with 57,974,120 person-months of follow-up.

The causes of unscheduled hospitalizations were inferred from Internation

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