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Study Finds Higher Rates of Premature Birth Near Fracking Sites (jhsph.edu)

Posted by Soulskill on from the now-with-improved-gestation-speed! dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health have published a study (abstract) noting that pregnant women are more likely to give birth prematurely if they live close to fracking sites. The researchers used data from 40 counties in Pennsylvania, in which 10,946 babies were born between January 2009 and January 2013. They compared the data with the fast spread of fracking sites across the state — thousands have been built since 2006.

"The researchers found that living in the most active quartile of drilling and production activity was associated with a 40 percent increase in the likelihood of a woman giving birth before 37 weeks of gestation (considered pre-term) and a 30 percent increase in the chance that an obstetrician had labeled their pregnancy "high-risk," a designation that can include factors such as elevated blood pressure or excessive weight gain during pregnancy. When looking at all of the pregnancies in the study, 11 percent of babies were born preterm, with the majority (79 percent) born between 32 and 36 weeks."

15 of 131 comments (clear)

  1. Correlation is not causation by Razed+By+TV · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm not a shill for the fracking industry. However, a question comes to my mind: Is it possible that it is not the fracking itself, but the stress of knowing that you live near the fracking?

    I wonder if they could model this with mice just to get a little more info on the effects of fracking pollutants.

    1. Re:Correlation is not causation by Mr+D+from+63 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Or could it be the general socioeconomic factors prevalent in these same areas?

    2. Re:Correlation is not causation by _Sharp'r_ · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Exactly. What they've done is managed to replicate this study that socioeconomic factors impact premature births by finding something that correlates with low socioeconomic status and then not adjusting for it.

      In the same manner, you could do a study that receiving welfare or jobless benefits causes premature births, or not having a second car causes premature births, or living near railroad track causes premature births, etc.... basically anything which also correlates with low income/living in the poorer part of town.

      From the abstract: "There were no associations of activity with Apgar score, small for gestational age birth, or term birth weight (after adjustment for year). In a posthoc analysis, there was an association with physician-recorded high-risk pregnancy identified from the problem list" In other words, the babies weren't obviously less healthy, but there were more high-risk pregnancies (high risk factors happen before the wells began, at the start of pregnancy) associated, almost as if the premature births and well placement correlation was from some other outside cause...

      Bottom line, if you have a choice over an area of where to put a fracking wellhead, you're going to pick the cheapest place to put it, which will correlate with lower income for the neighbors.

      --
      The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
    3. Re:Correlation is not causation by The+Grim+Reefer · · Score: 2

      Or could it be the general socioeconomic factors prevalent in these same areas?

      I was wondering the same thing. There usually isn't a lot of fracking in urban affluent areas. It tends to be in rural areas that are much poorer than what you would find in even the below average income areas of a city. Plus access to medical care is considerably less in those areas too.

      My family was from a rural area in Pennsylvania. My grandmother had seven children and was in her seventies the first time she went to a hospital or a doctor's office. The family doctor made house calls back then. But he died when my father was seventeen. So my father hadn't had seen a doctor after that until he was in his seventies either, and has never been checked into a hospital. He was the first person in my family to go to college, and even got his masters. So he was certainly educated.

      I was pretty much raised believing that you only go to the hospital to visit someone, or to die. Granted, as I've gotten (ahem) older, my wife has convinced me otherwise. I went to school as well, and even work in the medical field. But it's difficult to overcome what you're raised to believe.

    4. Re:Correlation is not causation by alvinrod · · Score: 2

      Not all of those areas where the oil boom is occurring were terribly high up the socioeconomic ladder before the boom started (and some were still recovering from when oil prices tanked in the 80s and things collapsed) and suddenly giving someone who's been poor a large amount of money doesn't make them a wise investor.

      You also get a lot of people coming in from outside the area, so there's not always a lot of sense of community (sometimes the influx of money increases the rent so much that the locals are essentially forced out) in these places, never mind the increase in drugs and other crime that generally follows in the wake of these types of economic booms. Add to that local social services that are in no way funded or staffed to meet the increasing needs and it doesn't paint a pretty picture.

    5. Re:Correlation is not causation by Immerman · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Right, no way that unknown chemicals entering the air and water could have any effect. And the fracking companies would surely hand over samples of the chemical soup they use to researchers for rigorous testing, it's not like they've repeatedly refused to even reveal the contents. Oh wait...

      Science doesn't start with explaining the mechanisms behind unexplained phenomena - it starts with confimring that there *are* unexplained phenomena and then searching for the mechanisms.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
    6. Re:Correlation is not causation by AthanasiusKircher · · Score: 5, Informative

      Science doesn't start with explaining the mechanisms behind unexplained phenomena - it starts with confimring that there *are* unexplained phenomena and then searching for the mechanisms.

      This may be so. So let's look at the study's "confirmation" of "unexplained phenomena," shall we? Oh wait -- the study is behind a paywall, so I guess we'll just use what they tell us in the abstract:

      In adjusted models, there was an association between unconventional natural gas development activity and preterm birth that increased across quartiles, with a fourth quartile odds ratio of 1.4 (95% confidence interval = 1.0, 1.9). There were no associations of activity with Apgar score, small for gestational age birth, or term birth weight (after adjustment for year).

      Translation: We looked for 4 things, and only 1 thing was statistically significant. Even for the worst quartile (i.e., that with the most drilling), the effect was only an odds ratio of 1.4, though we have 95% confidence that it was between 1.0 and 1.9.

      Let's note a few things here:

      (1) Odds ratios are not the same as relative risk, which is the more intuitive way of understanding stats. If a study finds a relative risk of 2 for factor X, that means your chances of getting a condition with factor X are twice as much as if you didn't have X. A relative risk of 1.4 means a 40% increase in risk. Odds ratios are more complex and are used for various statistical reasons, but they often tend to exaggerate an effect -- and it's unclear from this abstract what the actual increased risk is. But it's likely less than the 40% listed in TFS.

      (2) Statistically, they have a 95% confidence interval of 1.0 to 1.9. An odds ratio of 1.0 means there is no effect at all. Which means that there's probably a 5% chance the actual effect is outside of this range, possibly down to 1.0 (where there is no effect). The "no effect" line is drawn here where it's barely statistically significant (according to the typical 95% standard) for preterm birth.

      (3) The study was a "retrospective cohort" study, which means that they looked at pre-existing data (rather than a "prospective cohort" which would look at a control group and a study group going forward in future). There are always dangers here in selecting a sample group that happens to line up with your analysis, since you get to pick the group you want. (Since I can't read the rest of the study, I don't know how "selective" they were in choosing which areas to study, for example.)

      (4) The phrase "adjusted models" refers to earlier in the abstract where they talk about the various adjustments made for possible confounding variables and such. They also had a complex model for determining potential exposure based on "an inverse-distance squared model that incorporated distance to the mother's home; dates and durations of well pad development, drilling, and hydraulic fracturing; and production volume during the pregnancy." If that model is tweaked in various ways, it could probably completely change the study results. Anyhow, while such adjustments are important for modelling and confounding factors, they can be manipulated (often unintentionally) by researchers in all sorts of ways.

      (5) They looked for FOUR things, but they only found a statistically significant effect for ONE of them. The chances of finding at least 1 out of 4 things to satisfy a 95% threshold is about 18.5%. So if they threw in random numbers here, at least one of these things would "flag positive" in nearly 1 out of 5 times.

      (6) The abstract only reports the "worst quartile" as having this (already barely) statistically significant effect. Apparently other times of the year these effects were reduced (and possibly didn't even hit the barely statistically significant effect for the worst quartile)... which then leads to the question about how a 4-month window in a study may

    7. Re:Correlation is not causation by AthanasiusKircher · · Score: 2

      Exactly. What they've done is managed to replicate this study that socioeconomic factors impact premature births by finding something that correlates with low socioeconomic status and then not adjusting for it.

      You conveniently left out the part of the abstract when it says they controlled for "potential confounding variables," which usually includes income and such.

      (Note that I've already posted a detailed comment that points out various potential questions we should raise about this analysis. BUT, I'd say it's highly likely that the researchers DID control for socioeconomic factors -- unfortunately I can't be certain because of the paywall -- but basically all studies of this sort usually do. If they didn't, they'd be complete idiots.)

  2. Needs to be looked at more. by alzoron · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm not discounting the possibility that there may be a causal relationship here but from what I see of the article and abstract they only looked at data between 2009 and 2012. Is it possible that these sites have a preexisting condition that would cause higher levels of preterm birth? They should expand their data analysis to a larger period before the fracking occurred. This way we can at the very least see if there is a stronger correlation here and move forward.

  3. Re:Sooner they pop out sooner they can get to work by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 2

    Obviously Pennsylvanians and Oklahomans are dropping dead because their diets don't include enough iodine, leading to increased uptake-

    Oh wait. That was yesterday's crappy anti-energy 'study'. Next up: Wind turbines will make all birds go extinct.

  4. Re:Correlation vs cause by belthize · · Score: 4, Informative

    Sigh, I suspect they have as much or better clue than you do. It's entirely possible that there is no causal effect. Their study doesn't say there's a causal effect, it's says there's a correlated effect. Even the referenced press release states: "The researchers found that living in the most active quartile of drilling and production activity was associated with a 40 percent increase in the likelihood of a woman giving birth before 37 weeks of gestation."

    Stop viewing science press releases through the filter of whether it conforms to your world view or your superficial understanding of correlation and causation. That whole correlation isn't causation crap is becoming a mantra around here. People parroting it without really understanding what it means or doesn't mean or whether it even f'ing applies to the article in question.

  5. Was the same correlation there before fracking by jfdavis668 · · Score: 2

    The cause may be in the environment, and not due to fracking itself. Did they check the records before the fracking industry move in? Was it always there? It may just have been an environmental issue that coincides with the land features that trap the gas in the first place.

  6. Cause of Effect by kaatochacha · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Does fracking cause this, or do poor people with already statistically bad health outcomes live near fracking sites?
    It's not as if Millionaires with nice health insurance live on top of fracking sites.

  7. Re:Not idiots by almechist · · Score: 2, Funny

    If they didn't, they'd be complete idiots.

    Or, more likely, just very well paid. The entire field of environmental studies is sadly rife with rigged studies, often because the researchers or the people funding the research "know" ahead of time what the result SHOULD be, and the results will match that pre-ordained "understanding".

    Citation needed.

    oh fuck it, why do I bother... The entire field of right wing anti-environmentalism is rife with "pre-ordained understanding". (sigh)

  8. Re:Not idiots by KGIII · · Score: 2

    You can't win. They'll just stop responding. Then they'll find the next story and go on about it some more. Me? I don't have the expertise to opine so I read and try to find those who do. I welcome rational discourse and long for good fact and data-based debate simply so I can learn from it. With the highly emotionally charged subjects this doesn't seem like one of those times where I'll get what I want.

    So, back to poo flinging, screeching, monkey behavior for everyone!!!

    I'm not touching you!!!

    --
    "So long and thanks for all the fish."