Li Longxiang, Dominici Francesca, Blomberg Annelise J, Bargagli-Stoffi Falco J, Schwartz Joel D, Coull Brent A, Spengler John D, Wei Yaguang, Lawrence Joy, Koutrakis Petros
Department of Environmental Health, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA.
Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA.
Nat Energy. 2022 Feb;7(2):177-185. doi: 10.1038/s41560-021-00970-y. Epub 2022 Jan 27.
Little is known about whether exposure to unconventional oil and gas development is associated with higher mortality risks in the elderly and whether related air pollutants are exposure pathways. We studied a cohort of 15,198,496 Medicare beneficiaries (136,215,059 person-years) in all major U.S. unconventional exploration regions from 2001 to 2015. We gathered data from records of more than 2.5 million oil and gas wells. For each beneficiary's ZIP code of residence and year in the cohort, we calculated a proximity-based and a downwind-based pollutant exposure. We analyzed the data using two methods: Cox proportional hazards model and Difference-in-Differences. We found evidence of statistically significant higher mortality risk associated with living in proximity to and downwind of unconventional oil and gas wells. Our results suggest that primary air pollutants sourced from unconventional oil and gas exploration can be a major exposure pathway with adverse health effects in the elderly.
关于接触非常规油气开发是否与老年人更高的死亡风险相关，以及相关空气污染物是否为接触途径，目前所知甚少。我们研究了2001年至2015年美国所有主要非常规勘探地区的15198496名医疗保险受益人的队列（136215059人年）。我们从250多万口油气井的记录中收集数据。对于队列中每个受益人的居住邮政编码和年份，我们计算了基于距离和基于下风向的污染物暴露量。我们使用两种方法分析数据：Cox比例风险模型和差异-in-差异法。我们发现有证据表明，居住在非常规油气井附近和下风向与统计学上显著更高的死亡风险相关。我们的结果表明，非常规油气勘探产生的主要空气污染物可能是对老年人健康产生不利影响的主要接触途径。
