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Health Check: The Health Impact of Smoke from Californian Wildfires

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2018/11/21 GMT

The Health Impact of Smoke from Californian Wildfires

BBC World Service - Health Check, The Health Impact of Smoke from Californian Wildfires

What short and long-term health problems have residents been suffering from?

The short and long-term health problems afflicting residents of California; The Japanese art of forest bathing; Declining rates of FGM in parts of Africa

As well as the immediate danger from the Californian wildfire flames, areas close by have been shrouded in smoke, with air pollution as much as ten times higher than even on the most polluted days when there are no fires. John Balmes, Professor of Medicine at the University of California in San Francisco, has conducted research in Malawi looking at the effect this smoke could have on people's health in the long-term.  He speaks to Health Check about this long-term damage, and the short-term health problems residents have been experiencing.

One way to reduce stress in Japan is to take part in an activity known as Shrinrin-yoku, which means “forest bathing”.  It works to slow one down, activating all of one’s senses, to notice what is around you.  And the theory is that by spending time out in nature, you start to feel a little more relaxed. This type of forest therapy is becoming popular globally and there are now forest guides working in more than forty countries, with the aim of improving people’s well-being. Reporter Sian Griffiths heads into the woods near Ottawa, Canada, to meet a forest therapist.

Female genital mutilation, where the clitoris and labia of a girl are cut or removed, can often lead to lifelong health complications, serious problems during childbirth and painful, unsatisfying sex. But at last some good news; new research in the British Medical Journal suggests that between 1990 and 2017, the prevalence of FGM among girls up to the age of 14 fell sharply in most regions of Africa. Ngianga-Bakwin Kandala is Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Northumbria in the UK and the lead author of the study.


(Photo caption: Hospital workers and first responders evacuate patients from the Feather River Hospital as the Camp Fire moves through the area - credit: Getty Images)


Health Check was presented by Claudia Hammond with comments from BBC Health and Science correspondent, James Gallagher.

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