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.

Comments

Re:What's a Tufte test?

[alvinrod]

It's probably a reference to Edward Tufte who wrote The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. If you follow the second link and look at some of the charts used, they're not very useful because they completely fail to convey the data in a useful and meaningful way.

Also, I wouldn't call the statistics overly compelling either. They ran enough tests that they were likely to come up with at least one positive result. What they should do is use the few positive results that they've recorded here and verify them by conducting the same experimental procedure in different locations where fracking is also occurring to see if the same results are being seen.

Re:I bet

[Opportunist]

I'd sure as hell try to steer clear of hospitals. Most people in the developed world die in hospitals!

Re:What's a Tufte test?

[ganjadude]

one causation is working on a fracking rig. its probably dangerous, and there are probably a lot of new people in the area who were not prior. making hospital visits go up when populations, especially those in dangerous jobs go up