McKnight Molly X, Kolivras Korine N, Buttling Lauren G, Gohlke Julia M, Marr Linsey C, Pingel Thomas J, Ranganathan Shyam
Department of Geography Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Blacksburg VA USA.
Department of Population Health Sciences Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Blacksburg VA USA.
Geohealth. 2022 Oct 1;6(10):e2022GH000696. doi: 10.1029/2022GH000696. eCollection 2022 Oct.
A considerable body of research exists outlining ecological impacts of surface coal mining, but less work has explicitly focused on human health, and few studies have examined potential links between health and surface coal mining at fine spatial scales. In particular, relationships between individual birth outcomes and exposure to air contaminants from coal mining activities has received little attention. Central Appalachia (portions of Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee, USA), our study area, has a history of resource extraction, and epidemiologic research notes that the region experiences a greater level of adverse health outcomes compared to the rest of the country that are not fully explained by socioeconomic and behavioral factors. The purpose of this study is to examine associations between surface mining and birth outcomes at four spatial scales: individual, Census tract, county, and across county-sized grid cells. Notably, this study is among the first to examine these associations at the individual scale, providing a more direct measure of exposure and outcome. Airsheds were constructed for surface mines using an atmospheric trajectory model. We then implemented linear (birthweight) and logistic (preterm birth [PTB]) regression models to examine associations between airsheds and birth outcomes, which were geocoded to home address for individual analyses and then aggregated for areal unit analyses, while controlling for a number of demographic variables. This study found that surface mining airsheds are significantly associated with PTB and decreased birthweight at all four spatial scales, suggesting that surface coal mining activities impact birth outcomes via airborne contaminants.
已有大量研究概述了露天煤矿开采对生态的影响，但明确关注人类健康的研究较少，而且很少有研究在精细空间尺度上考察健康与露天煤矿开采之间的潜在联系。特别是，个体出生结局与煤矿开采活动产生的空气污染物暴露之间的关系很少受到关注。我们的研究区域——美国中阿巴拉契亚地区（包括弗吉尼亚州、西弗吉尼亚州、肯塔基州和田纳西州的部分地区）有着资源开采的历史，流行病学研究指出，与美国其他地区相比，该地区经历了更严重的不良健康结局，而社会经济和行为因素并不能完全解释这些差异。本研究的目的是在四个空间尺度上考察露天开采与出生结局之间的关联：个体尺度、人口普查区尺度、县尺度以及跨县大小的网格单元尺度。值得注意的是，本研究是首批在个体尺度上考察这些关联的研究之一，提供了更直接的暴露和结局测量方法。利用大气轨迹模型为露天煤矿构建了空气流域。然后，我们实施了线性（出生体重）和逻辑（早产[PTB]）回归模型，以考察空气流域与出生结局之间的关联，这些关联被地理编码到家庭住址用于个体分析，然后汇总用于区域单元分析，同时控制了一些人口统计学变量。本研究发现，在所有四个空间尺度上，露天开采空气流域都与PTB和出生体重下降显著相关，这表明露天煤矿开采活动通过空气传播污染物影响出生结局。
