Fracking Linked to Hospitalizations in the Marcellus Region
FrackCheckWV
Fracking Linked to Hospitalizations in the Marcellus Region
According to U of Penn & Columbia U Study — Frack area residents have health problems
Press Release — Perelman School of Medicine / University of Pennsylvania Health System, July 15, 2015
Philadelphia, PA – Hospitalizations for heart conditions, neurological illness, and other conditions were higher among people who live near unconventional gas and oil drilling (hydraulic fracturing), according to new research from the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University published this week in PLOS ONE. ...
To address this issue, researchers from two Environmental Health Science Core Centers (EHSCC) of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences — the Center of Excellence in Environmental Toxicology (CEET) at Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine and the Center for Environmental Health in Northern Manhattan at the Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, examined the link between drilling well density and healthcare use by zip code from 2007 to 2011 in three northeastern Pennsylvania counties.
Using databases that contained over 198,000 hospitalizations (which includes multiple hospitalizations for the same person), the team examined the top 25 specific medical categories for hospitalizations, as defined by the Pennsylvania Health Cost Containment Council. They associated these categories with residents’ proximity to active wells. Two of the counties — Bradford and Susquehanna — saw a significant increase in drilling activity over this time period, while the control county, Wayne, experienced no drilling activity due to a ban on drilling in that county because of its proximity to the Delaware River watershed.
“This study captured the collective response of residents to hydraulic fracturing in zip codes within the counties with higher well densities,” said senior author Reynold Panettieri, Jr., MD, a professor of Medicine and CEET deputy director. “At this point, we suspect that residents are exposed to many toxicants, noise, and social stressors due to hydraulic fracturing near their homes and this may add to the increased number of hospitalizations. This study represents one of the most comprehensive to date to link health effects with hydraulic fracturing.”
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