Faculty’s Research Highlights Health Care Impact of Wildfire Smoke
August 04, 2026Emily Bleiweis
Wildfire smoke in 2023 cost Maryland more than $2 million in health care and productivity costs. Research shows what steps could be taken to reduce future impact
Research from a University of Maryland School of Pharmacy (UMSOP) faculty member shows just how much wildfire smoke impacts Marylanders’ health — and how much it costs
$2.4 million
That’s how much a six-day hotspot in 2023 of wildfire smoke cost hospitals within the University of Maryland Medical System (UMMS) and society when accounting for hospital finances and societal productivity losses
Three years ago, when smoke blanketed large swaths of the United States, it turned skies in some areas an apocalyptic orange and sent numerous Marylanders to the hospital with heart and lung issues
Research from Zafar Zafari, MSc, PhD, associate professor of practice, sciences, and health outcomes research at UMSOP and an investigator at the University of Maryland Institute for Health Computing, shows that at UMMS hospitals, that additional cost was the result of an approximately 20 percent increase in cardiopulmonary events
“Because Maryland’s hospital payment system emphasizes managing the total cost of care — the state’s hospitals receive a predetermined, fixed annual budget each year as opposed to being paid per service or patient — reducing smoke exposure among high-risk individuals and potentially avoiding preventable health care utilization could help preserve health care re
Zafari’s research compared electronic health data from UMMS for the same time periods in 2018 and 2019, years chosen as control groups that had no major smoke impact and before the health impact of the coronavirus pandemic
Published in CHEST, Zafari and his team investigated three scenarios of what increased hospital strain would cost the state over the next decade. The research found that if fires continued at a rate of two large fires within the span of 10 years, the projected societal cost of smoke-related cardiopulmonary events would likely be $6.3 million
If, however, health care systems can target individuals who may be more harmed by the smoke — like those with a history of cardiopulmonary visits — and provide them with masks, it could save Maryland anywhere from $750,000 to nearly $1.5 million, depending on the filtration quality of masks provided
“One relatively inexpensive strategy is for hospitals to identify high-risk patients using historical clinical data and proactively contact them with recommendations to limit smoke exposure and use N95 respirators when poor air quality or wildfire smoke events are forecasted,” Zafar said
Wildfires will continue to send smoke plumes across the country, just as they did in July 2026 when Canadian wildfires once again caused unhealthy air quality in multiple states
The number of people needing medical care, and the financial toll, will continue to increase if interventions that minimize the exposure — like providing masks to at-risk populations — aren’t taken, Zafari’s research shows
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