Relation between exposure of rainforest fire smoke and clinical complaints during Indonesia rainforest fire in September-October 2015

Background: Forest fires produce smoke pollutant that is hazardous to human health. The rainforest fire of Riau, South Sumatera, and Borneo/Kalimantan in September–October 2015 was a major disaster both economically, environmentally, and to human health. This research aims to seek the association between demographic and forest fire smoke exposure with a multitude of clinical symptoms ranging from respiratory, eye, etc. Methods: Research samples were taken by online questionnaire in October 2015 to residents of Borneo and Sumatra whose area were exposed and polluted by the smoke. Data were analyzed using multivariate and bivariate analysis. Results: Among the results shown that duration of direct smoke exposure to a person (in hour/day) are statistically significant to health problems such as eye irritation (p = 0.024; OR = 44), cough (p = 0.031; OR = 19), rhinorrhea (p = 0.002; OR = 65), sore throat (p = 0.064; OR = 7.9), dyspnea (p = 0.026; OR = 12). The usage of simpler, less-protective equipment like tissue showed a higher risk (p = 0.048; OR = 18.8) than simple disposable ordinary mask (p = 0.03; OR = 6.3) to get respiratory symptoms, especially cough, and sore throat. Conclusion: Duration of forest fire smoke exposure and type of breathing protective equipment was associated with the health problems.