Dataset Information

Birth outcomes and maternal residential proximity to natural gas development in rural Colorado.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Birth defects are a leading cause of neonatal mortality. Natural gas development (NGD) emits several potential teratogens, and U.S. production of natural gas is expanding.

Objectives

We examined associations between maternal residential proximity to NGD and birth outcomes in a retrospective cohort study of 124,842 births between 1996 and 2009 in rural Colorado.

Methods

We calculated inverse distance weighted natural gas well counts within a 10-mile radius of maternal residence to estimate maternal exposure to NGD. Logistic regression, adjusted for maternal and infant covariates, was used to estimate associations with exposure tertiles for congenital heart defects (CHDs), neural tube defects (NTDs), oral clefts, preterm birth, and term low birth weight. The association with term birth weight was investigated using multiple linear regression.

Results

Prevalence of CHDs increased with exposure tertile, with an odds ratio (OR) of 1.3 for the highest tertile (95% CI: 1.2, 1.5); NTD prevalence was associated with the highest tertile of exposure (OR = 2.0; 95% CI: 1.0, 3.9, based on 59 cases), compared with the absence of any gas wells within a 10-mile radius. Exposure was negatively associated with preterm birth and positively associated with fetal growth, although the magnitude of association was small. No association was found between exposure and oral clefts.

Conclusions

In this large cohort, we observed an association between density and proximity of natural gas wells within a 10-mile radius of maternal residence and prevalence of CHDs and possibly NTDs. Greater specificity in exposure estimates is needed to further explore these associations.

SUBMITTER: McKenzie LM

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3984231 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

Birth outcomes and maternal residential proximity to natural gas development in rural Colorado.

McKenzie Lisa M LM Guo Ruixin R Witter Roxana Z RZ Savitz David A DA Newman Lee S LS Adgate John L JL

Environmental health perspectives 20140128 4

<h4>Background</h4>Birth defects are a leading cause of neonatal mortality. Natural gas development (NGD) emits several potential teratogens, and U.S. production of natural gas is expanding.<h4>Objectives</h4>We examined associations between maternal residential proximity to NGD and birth outcomes in a retrospective cohort study of 124,842 births between 1996 and 2009 in rural Colorado.<h4>Methods</h4>We calculated inverse distance weighted natural gas well counts within a 10-mile radius of mate ...[more]

PMID: 24474681

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Project description:BackgroundChemicals used or emitted by unconventional oil and gas development (UOGD) include reproductive/developmental toxicants. Associations between UOGD and certain birth defects were reported in a few studies, with none conducted in Ohio, which experienced a thirty-fold increase in natural gas production between 2010 and 2020.MethodsWe conducted a registry-based cohort study of 965,236 live births in Ohio from 2010 to 2017. Birth defects were identified in 4653 individuals using state birth records and a state surveillance system. We assigned UOGD exposure based on maternal residential proximity at birth to active UOG wells and a metric specific to the drinking-water exposure pathway that identified UOG wells hydrologically connected to a residence ("upgradient UOG wells"). We estimated odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for all structural birth defects combined and specific birth defect types using binary exposure metrics (presence/absence of any UOG well and presence/absence of an upgradient UOG well within 10 km), adjusting for confounders. Additionally, we conducted analyses stratified by urbanicity, infant sex, and social vulnerability.ResultsThe odds of any structural defect were 1.13 times higher in children born to mothers living within 10 km of UOGD than those born to unexposed mothers (95%CI: 0.98-1.30). Odds were elevated for neural tube defects (OR: 1.57, 95%CI: 1.12-2.19), limb reduction defects (OR: 1.99, 95%CI: 1.18-3.35), and spina bifida (OR 1.93; 95%CI 1.25-2.98). Hypospadias (males only) was inversely related to UOGD exposure (OR: 0.62, 95%CI: 0.43-0.91). Odds of any structural defect were greater in magnitude but less precise in analyses using the hydrological-specific metric (OR: 1.30; 95%CI: 0.85-1.90), in areas with high social vulnerability (OR: 1.27, 95%CI: 0.99-1.60), and among female offspring (OR: 1.28, 95%CI: 1.06-1.53).ConclusionsOur results suggest a positive association between UOGD and certain birth defects, and findings for neural tube defects corroborate results from prior studies.

Project description:BackgroundOil and gas development emits known hematological carcinogens, such as benzene, and increasingly occurs in residential areas. We explored whether residential proximity to oil and gas development was associated with risk for hematologic cancers using a registry-based case-control study design.MethodsParticipants were 0-24 years old, living in rural Colorado, and diagnosed with cancer between 2001-2013. For each child in our study, we calculated inverse distance weighted (IDW) oil and gas well counts within a 16.1-kilometer radius of residence at cancer diagnosis for each year in a 10 year latency period to estimate density of oil and gas development. Logistic regression, adjusted for age, race, gender, income, and elevation was used to estimate associations across IDW well count tertiles for 87 acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) cases and 50 non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) cases, compared to 528 controls with non-hematologic cancers.FindingsOverall, ALL cases 0-24 years old were more likely to live in the highest IDW well count tertiles compared to controls, but findings differed substantially by age. For ages 5-24, ALL cases were 4.3 times as likely to live in the highest tertile, compared to controls (95% CI: 1.1 to 16), with a monotonic increase in risk across tertiles (trend p-value = 0.035). Further adjustment for year of diagnosis increased the association. No association was found between ALL for children aged 0-4 years or NHL and IDW well counts. While our study benefited from the ability to select cases and controls from the same population, use of cancer-controls, the limited number of ALL and NHL cases, and aggregation of ages into five year ranges, may have biased our associations toward the null. In addition, absence of information on O&G well activities, meteorology, and topography likely reduced temporal and spatial specificity in IDW well counts.ConclusionBecause oil and gas development has potential to expose a large population to known hematologic carcinogens, further study is clearly needed to substantiate both our positive and negative findings. Future studies should incorporate information on oil and gas development activities and production levels, as well as levels of specific pollutants of interest (e.g. benzene) near homes, schools, and day care centers; provide age-specific residential histories; compare cases to controls without cancer; and address other potential confounders, and environmental stressors.

Dataset Information

Birth outcomes and maternal residential proximity to natural gas development in rural Colorado.

Background

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusions

Publications

Birth outcomes and maternal residential proximity to natural gas development in rural Colorado.

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