Exposure to hydraulic fracturing fluid in drinking water increases the risk of many adverse health outcomes. Unfortunately, most individuals and researchers are unaware of the health risks posed by a particular well due to the diversity of chemical ingredients used across sites. We constructed WellExplorer (http://WellExplorer.org), an interactive tool for researchers and community members to use for retrieving information regarding the hormonal, testosterone and estrogen modulators located at each well. We found that wells in Alabama use a disproportionately high number of ingredients targeting estrogen pathways, while Illinois, Ohio and Pennsylvania use a disproportionately high number of ingredients targeting testosterone pathways. Researchers can utilize WellExplorer to study health outcomes related to exposure to fracturing chemicals in their population-based cohorts. Community members can use this resource to search their home or work locations (e.g. town or zip code) to determine proximity between where they live or work and specific hormonal exposures.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.