Dataset Information

Proximity to natural gas wells and reported health status: results of a household survey in Washington County, Pennsylvania.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Little is known about the environmental and public health impact of unconventional natural gas extraction activities, including hydraulic fracturing, that occur near residential areas.

Objectives

Our aim was to assess the relationship between household proximity to natural gas wells and reported health symptoms.

Methods

We conducted a hypothesis-generating health symptom survey of 492 persons in 180 randomly selected households with ground-fed wells in an area of active natural gas drilling. Gas well proximity for each household was compared with the prevalence and frequency of reported dermal, respiratory, gastrointestinal, cardiovascular, and neurological symptoms.

Results

The number of reported health symptoms per person was higher among residents living < 1 km (mean ± SD, 3.27 ± 3.72) compared with > 2 km from the nearest gas well (mean ± SD, 1.60 ± 2.14; p = 0.0002). In a model that adjusted for age, sex, household education, smoking, awareness of environmental risk, work type, and animals in house, reported skin conditions were more common in households < 1 km compared with > 2 km from the nearest gas well (odds ratio = 4.1; 95% CI: 1.4, 12.3; p = 0.01). Upper respiratory symptoms were also more frequently reported in persons living in households < 1 km from gas wells (39%) compared with households 1-2 km or > 2 km from the nearest well (31 and 18%, respectively) (p = 0.004). No equivalent correlation was found between well proximity and other reported groups of respiratory, neurological, cardiovascular, or gastrointestinal conditions.

Conclusion

Although these results should be viewed as hypothesis generating, and the population studied was limited to households with a ground-fed water supply, proximity of natural gas wells may be associated with the prevalence of health symptoms including dermal and respiratory conditions in residents living near natural gas extraction activities. Further study of these associations, including the role of specific air and water exposures, is warranted.

SUBMITTER: Rabinowitz PM

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4286272 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Proximity to natural gas wells and reported health status: results of a household survey in Washington County, Pennsylvania.

Rabinowitz Peter M PM Slizovskiy Ilya B IB Lamers Vanessa V Trufan Sally J SJ Holford Theodore R TR Dziura James D JD Peduzzi Peter N PN Kane Michael J MJ Reif John S JS Weiss Theresa R TR Stowe Meredith H MH

Environmental health perspectives 20140910 1

<h4>Background</h4>Little is known about the environmental and public health impact of unconventional natural gas extraction activities, including hydraulic fracturing, that occur near residential areas.<h4>Objectives</h4>Our aim was to assess the relationship between household proximity to natural gas wells and reported health symptoms.<h4>Methods</h4>We conducted a hypothesis-generating health symptom survey of 492 persons in 180 randomly selected households with ground-fed wells in an area of ...[more]

PMID: 25204871

Similar Datasets

Project description:Recent research has shown relationships between health outcomes and residence proximity to unconventional oil and natural gas development (UOGD). The challenge of connecting health outcomes to environmental stressors requires ongoing research with new methodological approaches. We investigated UOGD density and well emissions and their association with symptom reporting by residents of southwest Pennsylvania. A retrospective analysis was conducted on 104 unique, de-identified health assessments completed from 2012-2017 by residents living in proximity to UOGD. A novel approach to comparing estimates of exposure was taken. Generalized linear modeling was used to ascertain the relationship between symptom counts and estimated UOGD exposure, while Threshold Indicator Taxa Analysis (TITAN) was used to identify associations between individual symptoms and estimated UOGD exposure. We used three estimates of exposure: cumulative well density (CWD), inverse distance weighting (IDW) of wells, and annual emission concentrations (AEC) from wells within 5 km of respondents' homes. Taking well emissions reported to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, an air dispersion and screening model was used to estimate an emissions concentration at residences. When controlling for age, sex, and smoker status, each exposure estimate predicted total number of reported symptoms (CWD, p<0.001; IDW, p<0.001; AEC, p<0.05). Akaike information criterion values revealed that CWD was the better predictor of adverse health symptoms in our sample. Two groups of symptoms (i.e., eyes, ears, nose, throat; neurological and muscular) constituted 50% of reported symptoms across exposures, suggesting these groupings of symptoms may be more likely reported by respondents when UOGD intensity increases. Our results do not confirm that UOGD was the direct cause of the reported symptoms but raise concern about the growing number of wells around residential areas. Our approach presents a novel method of quantifying exposures and relating them to reported health symptoms.

Dataset Information

Proximity to natural gas wells and reported health status: results of a household survey in Washington County, Pennsylvania.

Background

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion

Publications

Proximity to natural gas wells and reported health status: results of a household survey in Washington County, Pennsylvania.

Similar Datasets

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