How would you like us to communicate about air quality?

DOH wants to hear from local health jurisdictions and tribal health partners about communicating air quality hazard guidance.

Washington state has two tools to communicate air quality hazard to the public: The Air Quality Index (AQI) and the Washington Air Quality Advisory (WAQA). As wildfire smoke events increase in frequency and intensity, having two air quality indexes have added challenges for public health partners.

To address these challenges, state departments of Health and Ecology have started a project to explore and assess ways to represent air quality hazard and health impacts in Washington.

We are near the end of our stakeholder engagement process and would like more input from local and tribal health partners to ensure we have perspectives representing the state. Your engagement is a key component of this project, and we’d like to hear about your area’s needs, issues, and opportunities for wildfire smoke response and air quality communications.

For more information about joining this process, contact Kaitlyn Kelly. While we will engage with stakeholders throughout the project, we are seeking input for an important decision-making milestone by July 12, 2021.