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Study: Living Near Fracking Correlates With Increased Hospital Visits
New submitter Michael Tiemann writes: An article published in PLOS One finds increased hospital admissions significantly correlate with living in the same zip code as active fracking sites. The data comes from three counties in Pennsylvania, whose zip codes mostly had no fracking sites in 2007 and transitioned to a majority of zip codes with at least one fracking site. While the statistical and medical data are compelling, and speak to a significant correlation, the graphical and informational figures flunk every Tufte test, which is unfortunate. Nevertheless, with open data and Creative Commons licensing, the paper could be rewritten to provide a more compelling explanation about the dangers of fracking to people who live within its vicinity, and perhaps motivate more stringent regulations to protect them from both immediate and long-term harm.
Failtroll. Diesel doesn't light on fire like that.
What the heck is a Tufte test? Normally I would Google it but.... actually I did Google it and I still can't figure it out.
Since there are a lot of things that correlate with location of fracking sites, such as lower income, better chance of hurting oneself on drilling equipment, rural areas, it would lend more credence to the study to list if there were also more hospitalizations in those zip codes compared to other zip codes BEFORE fracking started.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
from people being employed in the areas had nothing to do with more people going to hospitals.
I worked in the Bakken oil/gas fields during the first two years of the boom, having grown up in the area.
It wreaks utter havoc on a community. Huge numbers of strangers move in, heavy equipment swarms all over the countryside, traffic goes from light to gridlock, all social and other services are crushed under the load, and the local economy turns upside down. In short, it's very stressful for pretty much everybody. It would not surprise me at all if a boom in local oil/gas development raises stress related problems (like heart attacks and mental health issues.)
But I don't see any evidence (or rational) supporting an assumption that the fracking portion of this larger whirlpool of human activity and chaos is in of itself the cause. The correlation makes sense for less exotic reasons.
Truthers are here....
Also, receiving a monthly royalty check from the gas company increases your disposable income, and means you can spend more on things like health care.
Note that during that study period sales at McDonalds across the nation were dropping. We thus can conclude that reduced sales at McDonalds leads to higher number of hospital visits.
So there might be more variables at work with the frequency of hospital visits.
I bet living near hospitals correlates to more hospital visits too.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
The two "significant" effects, for cardiology and neurology, are increases of 0.07% and 0.06%, respectively. Not 7% and 6%, but 0.07% and 0.06%. These are the smallest effect sizes you will ever see published. Effect sizes of that tiny size can easily be explained by decisions on which data to use, how to analyze it, etc. Even if those effects were real, those effect sizes are too small to care about. Nothing to see here. Move along.
"...the graphical and informational figures flunk every Tufte test, which is unfortunate" -- Says so much about the author of the post. .06% increase in a data set of this size is compelling? It stinks when the data doesn't fit one's preconceived notions.That's one of the the beauties of science and why healthy scepticism is required.
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth " - I said it, so sue me.
Active fracking is an activity measured in days. Most of the life of a well is simply pumping...
The odds of being assaulted by a fracking rig crewman in those areas are 2000% higher than in other areas.
1) An incredibly small population.
Which describes all fracking sites exactly - they are in remote communities.
2) An incredibly dangerous working environment.
No, it does not have to be "incredibly" dangerous. Just MORE dangerous than work in the surrounding area, which if you are in some remote mostly bedroom or farming community is absolutely going to be true for any complex mechanical complex which has frequent shipping and operation. "Hospital visits" is extremely vague and can include something like a small cut which most people would just patch up but which a company has to send to a doctor for examination for legal reasons.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
http://journals.plos.org/ploso...
Look at their graph and compare the first year with the last year. They're so f'ing similar.
Beyond that, consider they're not showing you how many illnesses anyone had... just hospital visits. Thus they could be going to the hospitals because idiots in the media scared them and it is causing a clearly very small uptick in hypochondria.
If I had a super power... it would be to urinate in the faces of people that push this shit.
Please contradict me. I would love to be wrong. I really would be... No really. this garbage depresses me with how dumb it is and if I just made stupid mistakes then that would be on me. I'd much prefer that. No really.
Until that happens... I'm going to be exposing myself to gamma rays and letting odd radioactive insects bite me on the off chance that I'll get the super power the world both needs and deserves.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
"Fracking causes hospital visits to rise"
Poor people need to visit hospital more often, as their health is worse. And where better to frack than among poor people, whose political representatives don't give a crap about their welfare?
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
This study does not explain anything, because correlation != causation. The correlation could be entirely unrelated to fracking, for all we know, because they chose to spend their money on statistics, not on the scientific method. Imagine what it would have been like if they attempted to prove that fracking causes health problems by repeatable experimentation. Now, that would be interesting.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
If anyone would ever bother, the statisticians could also determine that living in a city that is controlled by democrats correlates with a greater likelihood of being robbed. Also I suppose you could do a study showing living next to black people likely correlates to being a victim of a serious crime. Of coarse you can not actually publish such a study because it's entire premise is politically incorrect and racist. You can however publish a study saying that living next to a fracking site will send you to the hospital
Science at it's best.
Actually, you can publish those studies, but the difference is the press would not embrace them and push them mindlessly.
The study authors say there was no fracking in 2007, and lots in 2011.
They then say (quoting):
"The inpatient rates are relatively stable from 2007â"2011 Indeed, the average overall inpatient prevalence rates for 2007â"2011 are, respectively, 15.18, 15.30, 14.86, 14.00, 14.25"
So the introduction of fracking did NOT increase hospital admissions. Indeed, over the four year that the economy in the area got a boost from fracking, people got healthier, according to the numbers in the study.
Then then do a bunch of gymnastics to discover, then obscure, the fact that oil wells tend to be located in more rural areas, and people's health tends to be slightly worse in those areas.
My peer review is to not publish it. "the graphical and informational figures flunk every Tufte test, which is unfortunate" for sure; and when you plow through that and the equally befuddling verbiage, the actual evidence is pretty thin.
What I'd like to see but can't seem to find in the paper: that hospital admissions INCREASED in zip codes where fracking came in, more so than in those without, around and after the time fracking started. The evidence given, however, appears to be that hospital admissions are now more frequent in said zip codes, after 5 years of fracking. But it should be no surprise to anybody that there is variation in hospital admission by zip code; and we've known for decades that there seem to be disease clusters associated with certain geological types of area; that some of these regions might be frackable shale is equally possible in the absence of any time-related data
What is particularly shooting themselves in the foot:
"Fig 3 also shows that, within each zip code, the contribution by year was comparable, suggesting that within each zip code, the inpatient rates are relatively stable from 2007–2011 Indeed, the average overall inpatient prevalence rates for 2007–2011 are, respectively, 15.18, 15.30, 14.86, 14.00, 14.25. This indicates that on average, zip code overall inpatient prevalence rates were relatively stable or possibly declining from 2007 to 2011, which mirrors national trends."
but
"In 2007, the majority of zip codes have no wells, but by 2011, the majority of zip codes have at least 1 well."
If I'm reading this right, the areas having higher hospital admissions in 2011, and also have more wells, also had more admissions in 2007, although most of them had no wells then. ???? And the only time correlation they have is that more fracking overall correlates with fewer admissions over all. "National trends" OK, but wouldn't it be better proof if the places where fracking increased actually increased admissions? The best they can say here is that national trends suggest that fracking is not necessarily responsible for the reduction in admissions in those areas.
Similarly, "investigating the association between number of wells and inpatient prevalence rates and the association between well density and inpatient prevalence rates." They're ignoring the changes in well density over time vs changes in inpatient prevalence rate over time?
It's possible I am missing something, given the befuddled presentation (not being insulting here, been there myself, to present one's research in such a way as to make a compelling case is a form of fiction writing rather than historical reporting).
Credit to them for honesty regarding the limitations of the study in the discussion. I don't think they're trying to fudge anything.
BTW, I am not a Friend of Fracking or the petroleum industry in any form.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
Also, receiving a monthly royalty check from the gas company increases your disposable income, and means you can spend more on things like health care.
Similarly, as they said, fracking areas may have more temporary residents employed doing the fracking, which would raise the hospital admissions but not the denominator they used, which was the number of PERMANENT residents, thereby raising the admission rate.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
A correlation does not mean there is a causal connection.
The local numbers show that admissions did not increase during the period in which fracking was introduced, and that certain zip codes (rural areas) has higher admissions first, then later got wells. As wells were built, health improved - probably because it brought jobs, which improves the local economy.