Gender disparity is not only a matter of wages and family roles. Pulmonary disease can affect women differently, and with a greater degree of severity, than men.

Scientists like Dr. Kent Pinkerton, a Core Scientist in the California National Primate Research Center (CNPRC) Respiratory Diseases Unit and for the Inhalation Exposure Core at UC Davis, are utilizing nonhuman primate research to examine gender-based differences in lung health and disease and the effects of climate change on lung health. Since the nonhuman primate lung has been shown to have similar architectural, morphological and developmental patterns to that of humans, it is the perfect model of lung development and aging processes.

Dr. Pinkerton and his colleagues thoroughly reviewed sociocultural implications of pulmonary disease attributable to numerous causes, including biomass burning and infectious diseases among women in low-to middle-income countries, as well as disparities in respiratory health among sexual minority women in high-income countries. The scientific team sought answers to many questions – 10, to be exact – addressing gender-based disparities in lung health as it relates to telomere length, stages of life, hormones, cumulative effects, and environmental toxins.

For example, women in low- to middle-income countries must combat with household air pollution (HAP) or indoor air pollution from the indoor burning of solid fuels. With limited access to fuels, households often use wood, charcoal, animal waste, coal or crop residue for cooking using either open fires or traditional unvented stoves. These cooking fires release soot into the household air and blacken the interior walls, resulting in air that exceeds World Health Organization (WHO) air quality standards by 10 to 100 fold.

HAP exposure is linked to  four million deaths worldwide each year, predominantly from COPD, cardiovascular disease, acute pneumonia in children under age five and lung cancer. Bearing responsibility for cooking and childcare, women especially suffer from HAP exposure-related diseases.

Thankfully, cleaner cooking solutions, like highly efficient cookstoves or effective, well-maintained chimneys, can reduce household exposures and improve the health of women and kids worldwide. However, with a need to reach hundreds of millions of households and to find the best solutions and mechanisms to implement such strategies, the problem is daunting.

Utilizing the CNPRC’s extensive capabilities and resources, and a myriad of research projects under way, Dr. Pinkerton is well positioned to understand the mechanisms underlying respiratory diseases and to develop new strategies to alleviate the detrimental health outcomes of pollutant exposures.

Reviewed August 2019

Wildfires can can destroy a community, but it’s the smoke that can suck the life out of your lungs.  

But what exactly is smoke? Simply put – it’s a collection of particles suspended in the air as a result of a fire. And smoke from wildfires is a particularly complex assortment, with a greater quantity and variety of particles than smoke from other types of fire. It’s this combination that make wildfire smoke especially toxic to the lungs according to Kent Pinkerton, a researcher at the California National Primate Research Center and a professor of pediatrics and veterinary medicine.

“Particles and gases that are generated from wildfires can create all sorts of conditions and symptoms, such as tightness or pain in the chest, wheezing, shortness of breath, and coughing, all of which would be triggered in certain individuals,” said Pinkerton. “We may also see burning and stinging of the nose, eyes and throat, even dizziness or lightheadedness. Typically, we see a rapid recovery from symptoms, but there can be those for whom the symptoms linger for a day or 2.”

Children, in particular, are accurately susceptible to the negative effects of wildfire smoke.

“Children are always active and energetic and they take in large quantities of air with a rapid respiration rate. Because of this, the effects of the smoke can be far greater for children than for adults,” he explained. “Their lungs have a smaller surface area for the particles to interact with. Each of those can affect children to cause wheezing, coughing, shortness of breath that may not be evident in adults who are breathing the same air.”

Household pets can experience the same symptoms, but they also have one natural advantage over humans – a sophisticated filtering system.

“For mammals like cats and dogs, they have a very similar lung structure to humans.  They can also feel those effects just like we do,” Pinkerton said. “They also have the ability to protect themselves— they are more likely to be nose breathers rather than breathing through their mouths, which provides a certain degree of protection through the filtration of particles that are in the air through the nasal cavity. They have a much more complicated structure in the nasal cavity that we do as humans.”

Whether it’s kids or pets, wildfire smoke can be devastating to a respiratory system. But thanks to the continuing work of Pinkerton and his team of researchers, future smoke victims will likely live longer, healthier lives.

Reviewed August 2019