Wildfire and Smoke Risk Communication: A Systematic Literature Review from a Health Equity Focus

Effective wildfire smoke risk and evacuation communication is urgently needed to avert unnecessary deaths as wildfires increase in frequency and intensity. Human exposure to wildfires has doubled in the last two decades. Low-income, marginalized communities are the most disadvantaged in their ability to respond. A systematic literature review of wildfire and wildfire smoke risk communication research between 2014 and 2024 was conducted. Web of Science and Scopus databases were searched using the keywords “wildfire”, “communication”, “wildfire smoke”, “risk”, and “public health”, resulting in 23 studies. The findings revealed marginalized communities were ill-prepared to respond to wildfires and take protective action against wildfire smoke. The findings were summarized across eight areas: the needs of marginalized communities to respond to wildfires, the role of trusted messengers to disseminate wildfire and smoke risk messaging, using diverse channels, timing and frequency considerations for disseminating messages, time-sensitive evacuation versus wildfire smoke risk messaging, targeted messaging for subgroups, the importance of coordinating messages across agencies and local government, and government perspective. Theory did not guide these research efforts with the exception of one study, and most studies were qualitative. The literature did not report on distinguishing indoor from outdoor protective action against smoke risk, reaching vulnerable communities such as nursing and older adult facilities, and postfire messaging. Evidence is needed on these fronts, along with experimental messaging studies to determine the most persuasive messages for motivating protective actions against wildfire and smoke risk.