Unconventional Gas and Oil Drilling Is Associated with Increased Hospital Utilization Rates

Abstract

Over the past ten years, unconventional gas and oil drilling (UGOD) has markedly expanded in the United States. Despite substantial increases in well drilling, the health consequences of UGOD toxicant exposure remain unclear. This study examines an association between wells and healthcare use by zip code from 2007 to 2011 in Pennsylvania. Inpatient discharge databases from the Pennsylvania Healthcare Cost Containment Council were correlated with active wells by zip code in three counties in Pennsylvania. For overall inpatient prevalence rates and 25 specific medical categories, the association of inpatient prevalence rates with number of wells per zip code and, separately, with wells per km2 (separated into quantiles and defined as well density) were estimated using fixed-effects Poisson models. To account for multiple comparisons, a Bonferroni correction with associations of p<0.00096 was considered statistically significant. Cardiology inpatient prevalence rates were significantly associated with number of wells per zip code (p<0.00096) and wells per km2 (p<0.00096) while neurology inpatient prevalence rates were significantly associated with wells per km2 (p<0.00096). Furthermore, evidence also supported an association between well density and inpatient prevalence rates for the medical categories of dermatology, neurology, oncology, and urology. These data suggest that UGOD wells, which dramatically increased in the past decade, were associated with increased inpatient prevalence rates within specific medical categories in Pennsylvania. Further studies are necessary to address healthcare costs of UGOD and determine whether specific toxicants or combinations are associated with organ-specific responses.

The health implications of unconventional natural gas development in Pennsylvania

“…The state of Pennsylvania is rich in Marcellus shale reserves and has witnessed a significant expansion of unconventional natural gas development in the past decade, making it a good location to study the effects of drilling. Our paper extends the work of Jemielita et al () in several important dimensions. First, we expand the scope of analysis from a few counties to the entire state of Pennsylvania in order to capture potential spill‐over effects and increase the generalizability of our results.…”

“…6 Persistent correlations between the above five conditions and air pollution have been established in the epidemiological literature (e.g., see Brunekreef and Holgate (2002); Dockery and Pope III (1994); Dominici, Peng, Bell, et al (2006) ;Eder, Ege, and von Mutius (2006)); Garshick (2014); Lee, Kim, and Lee (2014); Neupane et al (2010); Schwartz, Slater, Larson, Pierson, and Koenig (1993). 3 Assessing the robustness of these estimates is particularly important given what appears to be an error in the dataset constructed by Jemielita et al (2015). After aggregating zip code well counts to the county level from 2007 to 2011, the total number of unconventional wells drilled during this period in the Jemielita et al (2015) dataset is 3,568 for Bradford County and 964 for Susquehanna County, respectively.…”

“…3 Assessing the robustness of these estimates is particularly important given what appears to be an error in the dataset constructed by Jemielita et al (2015). After aggregating zip code well counts to the county level from 2007 to 2011, the total number of unconventional wells drilled during this period in the Jemielita et al (2015) dataset is 3,568 for Bradford County and 964 for Susquehanna County, respectively. However, according to the PADEP oil and gas reporting website (the source of raw well data for both Jemielita et al (2015) and our study), there are records for only 945 unconventional wells drilled in Bradford county and 457 wells unconventional wells drilled in Susquehanna County between 2007 and 2011.…”

Governing Unconventional Oil and Gas Extraction: The Case of Pennsylvania

“…Despite potentially serious consequences, comprehensive, methodologically rigorous, population‐based epidemiological studies of public health effects are relatively lacking at present, leaving many significant uncertainties about externalized effects—especially long‐term effects—of UOGE on public health (Adgate et al, ; Shonkoff, Hays, & Finkel, ). Some studies, however, are emerging documenting adverse public health outcomes associated with exposure to UOGE, including: negative impacts on birth outcomes (Casey et al, ; Stacy et al, ); increased prevalence of cariological, neurological, dermatological, oncological, and urological conditions (Jemielita et al, ); asthma exacerbations (Rasmussen et al, ); increased reporting of nasal, sinus, migraine, and fatigue symptoms (Tustin et al, ) as well as respiratory symptoms and skin conditions (Rabinowitz et al, ); and even increased traffic accident rates (Graham et al, ). Furthermore, current methods of collecting and analyzing atmospheric emissions data may be insufficient for accurately assisting health risks to individuals living near UOGE facilities (Brown, Weinberger, Lewis, & Bonaparte, ).…”

Association of groundwater constituents with topography and distance to unconventional gas wells in NE Pennsylvania

“…Many other countries appear to be holding off on UGD development, possibly given its impacts on environment and health remain unclear. Several environmental health studies have linked adverse health effects, such as asthma, increase of congenital heart defects of newborns, and hospitalization rates, to active UGD sites (Jemielita et al, 2015; McKenzie et al, 2015; Rasmussen et al, 2016; Stacy et al, 2015), although the cause of the association is not well understood. The exposure measures in these studies were based on the distance from the patient’s home to the gas well or gas well density in the zip code of the patient’s home.…”