Wildfires increasingly threaten oil and gas wells in the western United States with disproportionate impacts on marginalized populations.

The western United States is home to most of the nation's oil and gas production and, increasingly, wildfires. We examined historical threats of wildfires for oil and gas wells, the extent to which wildfires are projected to threaten wells as climate change progresses, and exposure of human populations to these wells. From 1984-2019, we found that cumulatively 102,882 wells were located in wildfire burn areas, and 348,853 people were exposed (resided ≤ 1 km). During this period, we observed a five-fold increase in the number of wells in wildfire burn areas and a doubling of the population within 1 km of these wells. These trends are projected to increase by late century, likely threatening human health. Approximately 2.9 million people reside within 1 km of wells in areas with high wildfire risk, and Asian, Black, Hispanic, and Native American people have disproportionately high exposure to wildfire-threatened wells.

Ambient Environment and the Epidemiology of Preterm Birth.

Preterm birth (PTB) is associated with substantial mortality and morbidity. We describe environmental factors that may influence PTB risks. We focus on exposures associated with an individual's ambient environment, such as air pollutants, water contaminants, extreme heat, and proximities to point sources (oil/gas development or waste sites) and greenspace. These exposures may further vary by other PTB risk factors such as social constructs and stress. Future examinations of risks associated with ambient environment exposures would benefit from consideration toward multiple exposures - the exposome - and factors that modify risk including variations associated with the structural genome, epigenome, social stressors, and diet.

Measuring long-term exposure to wildfire PM2.5 in California: Time-varying inequities in environmental burden.

Wildfires have become more frequent and intense due to climate change and outdoor wildfire fine particulate matter (PM2.5) concentrations differ from relatively smoothly varying total PM2.5. Thus, we introduced a conceptual model for computing long-term wildfire PM2.5 and assessed disproportionate exposures among marginalized communities. We used monitoring data and statistical techniques to characterize annual wildfire PM2.5 exposure based on intermittent and extreme daily wildfire PM2.5 concentrations in California census tracts (2006 to 2020). Metrics included: 1) weeks with wildfire PM2.5 < 5 µg/m3; 2) days with non-zero wildfire PM2.5; 3) mean wildfire PM2.5 during peak exposure week; 4) smoke waves (≥2 consecutive days with <15 µg/m3 wildfire PM2.5); and 5) mean annual wildfire PM2.5 concentration. We classified tracts by their racial/ethnic composition and CalEnviroScreen (CES) score, an environmental and social vulnerability composite measure. We examined associations of CES and racial/ethnic composition with the wildfire PM2.5 metrics using mixed-effects models. Averaged 2006 to 2020, we detected little difference in exposure by CES score or racial/ethnic composition, except for non-Hispanic American Indian and Alaska Native populations, where a 1-SD increase was associated with higher exposure for 4/5 metrics. CES or racial/ethnic × year interaction term models revealed exposure disparities in some years. Compared to their California-wide representation, the exposed populations of non-Hispanic American Indian and Alaska Native (1.68×, 95% CI: 1.01 to 2.81), white (1.13×, 95% CI: 0.99 to 1.32), and multiracial (1.06×, 95% CI: 0.97 to 1.23) people were over-represented from 2006 to 2020. In conclusion, during our study period in California, we detected disproportionate long-term wildfire PM2.5 exposure for several racial/ethnic groups.

Multiple Dimensions of Environmental Justice and Oil and Gas Development in Pennsylvania.

Background: Community socioeconomic deprivation (CSD) may be related to higher oil and natural gas development (OGD) exposure. We tested for distributive and benefit-sharing environmental injustice in Pennsylvania's Marcellus Shale by examining (1) whether OGD and waste disposal occurred disproportionately in more deprived communities and (2) discordance between the location of land leased for OGD and where oil and gas rights owners resided. Materials and Methods: Analyses took place at the county subdivision level and considered OGD wells, waste disposal, and land lease agreement locations from 2005 to 2019. Using 2005-2009 American Community Survey data, we created a CSD index relevant to community vulnerability in suburban/rural areas. Results: In adjusted regression models accounting for spatial dependence, we observed no association between the CSD index and conventional or unconventional drilled well presence. However, a higher CSD index was linearly associated with odds of a subdivision having an OGD waste disposal site and receiving a larger volume of waste. A higher percentage of oil and gas rights owners lived in the same county subdivision as leased land when the community was least versus most deprived (66% vs. 56% in same county subdivision), suggesting that individuals in more deprived communities were less likely to financially benefit from OGD exposure. Discussion and Conclusions: We observed distributive environmental injustice with respect to well waste disposal and benefit-sharing environmental injustice related to oil and rights owner's residential locations across Pennsylvania's Marcellus Shale. These results add evidence of a disparity between exposure and benefits resulting from OGD.

Methods in Public Health Environmental Justice Research: a Scoping Review from 2018 to 2021.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: The volume of public health environmental justice (EJ) research produced by academic institutions increased through 2022. However, the methods used for evaluating EJ in exposure science and epidemiologic studies have not been catalogued. Here, we completed a scoping review of EJ studies published in 19 environmental science and epidemiologic journals from 2018 to 2021 to summarize research types, frameworks, and methods. RECENT FINDINGS: We identified 402 articles that included populations with health disparities as a part of EJ research question and met other inclusion criteria. Most studies (60%) evaluated EJ questions related to socioeconomic status (SES) or race/ethnicity. EJ studies took place in 69 countries, led by the US (n = 246 [61%]). Only 50% of studies explicitly described a theoretical EJ framework in the background, methods, or discussion and just 10% explicitly stated a framework in all three sections. Among exposure studies, the most common area-level exposure was air pollution (40%), whereas chemicals predominated personal exposure studies (35%). Overall, the most common method used for exposure-only EJ analyses was main effect regression modeling (50%); for epidemiologic studies the most common method was effect modification (58%), where an analysis evaluated a health disparity variable as an effect modifier. Based on the results of this scoping review, current methods in public health EJ studies could be bolstered by integrating expertise from other fields (e.g., sociology), conducting community-based participatory research and intervention studies, and using more rigorous, theory-based, and solution-oriented statistical research methods.

Toward Language Justice in Environmental Health Sciences in the United States: A Case for Spanish as a Language of Science.

BACKGROUND: Increasingly, marginalized communities are disproportionately facing the worsening effects of environmental hazards, including air pollution, water pollution, and climate change. Language isolation and accessibility has been understudied as a determinant of health. Spanish, despite being the second-most common language in the United States with some 41.8 million speakers, has been neglected among environmental health scientists. Building capacity in high-quality Spanish-language science communication, both for scientific and nonscientific audiences, can yield improvements in health disparities research, public health literacy, international collaborations, and diversity and inclusion efforts. OBJECTIVES: In this article, we discuss the context of language diversity in environmental health sciences and offer recommendations for improving science communication in Spanish. DISCUSSION: English is currently the predominant language for scientific discourse, but Spanish and other non-English languages are routinely used by many environmental health science students and professionals, as well as much of the public. To more effectively conduct and communicate environmental health work in Spanish, we suggest that researchers and scientific institutions a) foster structural changes, b) train emerging scholars and support established researchers, c) tap into community ways of knowing, and d) leverage emerging technologies. https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP12306.

Temporal Trends of Racial and Socioeconomic Disparities in Population Exposures to Upstream Oil and Gas Development in California.

People living near oil and gas development are exposed to multiple environmental stressors that pose health risks. Some studies suggest these risks are higher for racially and socioeconomically marginalized people, which may be partly attributable to disparities in exposures. We examined whether racially and socioeconomically marginalized people in California are disproportionately exposed to oil and gas wells and associated hazards. We longitudinally assessed exposure to wells during three time periods (2005-2009, 2010-2014, and 2015-2019) using sociodemographic data at the census block group-level. For each block group and time period, we assessed exposure to new, active, retired, and plugged wells, and cumulative production volume. We calculated risk ratios to determine whether marginalized people disproportionately resided near wells (within 1 km). Averaged across the three time periods, we estimated that 1.1 million Californians (3.0%) lived within 1 km of active wells. Nearly 9 million Californians (22.9%) lived within 1 km of plugged wells. The proportion of Black residents near active wells was 42%-49% higher than the proportion of Black residents across California, and the proportion of Hispanic residents near active wells was 4%-13% higher than their statewide proportion. Disparities were greatest in areas with the highest oil and gas production, where the proportion of Black residents was 105%-139% higher than statewide. Socioeconomically marginalized residents also had disproportionately high exposure to wells. Though oil and gas production has declined in California, marginalized communities persistently had disproportionately high exposure to wells, potentially contributing to health disparities.

Historic redlining and the siting of oil and gas wells in the United States.

BACKGROUND: The presence of active or inactive (i.e., postproduction) oil and gas wells in neighborhoods may contribute to ongoing pollution. Racially discriminatory neighborhood security maps developed by the Home-Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC) in the 1930s may contribute to environmental exposure disparities. OBJECTIVE: To determine whether receiving worse HOLC grades was associated with exposure to more oil and gas wells. METHODS: We assessed exposure to oil and gas wells among HOLC-graded neighborhoods in 33 cities from 13 states where urban oil and gas wells were drilled and operated. Among the 17 cities for which 1940 census data were available, we used propensity score restriction and matching to compare well exposure neighborhoods that were similar on observed 1940 sociodemographic characteristics but that received different grades. RESULTS: Across all included cities, redlined D-graded neighborhoods had 12.2 ± 27.2 wells km-2, nearly twice the density in neighborhoods graded A (6.8 ± 8.9 wells km-2). In propensity score restricted and matched analyses, redlined neighborhoods had 2.0 (1.3, 2.7) more wells than comparable neighborhoods with a better grade. SIGNIFICANCE: Our study adds to the evidence that structural racism in federal policy is associated with the disproportionate siting of oil and gas wells in marginalized neighborhoods.

Racial Disparities in Climate Change-Related Health Effects in the United States.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Climate change is causing warming over most parts of the USA and more extreme weather events. The health impacts of these changes are not experienced equally. We synthesize the recent evidence that climatic changes linked to global warming are having a disparate impact on the health of people of color, including children. RECENT FINDINGS: Multiple studies of heat, extreme cold, hurricanes, flooding, and wildfires find evidence that people of color, including Black, Latinx, Native American, Pacific Islander, and Asian communities are at higher risk of climate-related health impacts than Whites, although this is not always the case. Studies of adults have found evidence of racial disparities related to climatic changes with respect to mortality, respiratory and cardiovascular disease, mental health, and heat-related illness. Children are particularly vulnerable to the health impacts of climate change, and infants and children of color have experienced adverse perinatal outcomes, occupational heat stress, and increases in emergency department visits associated with extreme weather. The evidence strongly suggests climate change is an environmental injustice that is likely to exacerbate existing racial disparities across a broad range of health outcomes.

Upstream oil and gas production and ambient air pollution in California.

BACKGROUND: Prior studies have found that residential proximity to upstream oil and gas production is associated with increased risk of adverse health outcomes. Emissions of ambient air pollutants from oil and gas wells in the preproduction and production stages have been proposed as conferring risk of adverse health effects, but the extent of air pollutant emissions and resulting nearby pollution concentrations from wells is not clear. OBJECTIVES: We examined the effects of upstream oil and gas preproduction (count of drilling sites) and production (total volume of oil and gas) activities on concentrations of five ambient air pollutants in California. METHODS: We obtained data on approximately 1 million daily observations from 314 monitors in the EPA Air Quality System, 2006-2019, including daily concentrations of five routinely monitored ambient air pollutants: PM2.5, CO, NO2, O3, and VOCs. We obtained data on preproduction and production operations from Enverus and the California Geographic Energy Management Division (CalGEM) for all wells in the state. For each monitor and each day, we assessed exposure to upwind preproduction wells and total oil and gas production volume within 10 km. We used a panel regression approach in the analysis and fit adjusted fixed effects linear regression models for each pollutant, controlling for geographic, seasonal, temporal, and meteorological factors. RESULTS: We observed higher concentrations of PM2.5 and CO at monitors within 3 km of preproduction wells, NO2 at monitors at 1-2 km, and O3 at 2-4 km from the wells. Monitors with proximity to increased production volume observed higher concentrations of PM2.5, NO2, and VOCs within 1 km and higher O3 concentrations at 1-2 km. Results were robust to sensitivity analyses. CONCLUSION: Adjusting for geographic, meteorological, seasonal, and time-trending factors, we observed higher concentrations of ambient air pollutants at air quality monitors in proximity to preproduction wells within 4 km and producing wells within 2 km.

Oil and gas production and spontaneous preterm birth in the San Joaquin Valley, CA: A case-control study.

BACKGROUND: Recent studies report an association between preterm birth and exposure to unconventional oil and gas wells. There has been limited previous study on exposure to conventional wells, which are common in California. Our objective was to determine whether exposure to well sites was associated with increased odds of spontaneous preterm birth (delivery at <37 weeks). METHODS: We conducted a case-control study using data on 27,913 preterm birth cases and 197,461 term birth controls. All births were without maternal comorbidities and were located in the San Joaquin Valley, CA, between 1998 and 2011. We obtained data for 83,559 wells in preproduction or production during the study period. We assessed exposure using inverse distance-squared weighting and, for each birth and trimester, we assigned an exposure tertile. Using logistic regression, we estimated adjusted odds ratios (ORs) for the association between exposure to well sites and preterm birth at 20-27, 28-31, and 32-36 weeks. RESULTS: We observed increased ORs for preterm birth with high exposure to wells in the first and second trimesters for births delivered at ≤31 weeks (adjusted ORs, 1.08-1.14). In stratified analyses, the associations were confined to births to Hispanic and non-Hispanic Black women and to women with ≤12 years of educational attainment. In a secondary analysis, we found evidence that exposure to wells in preproduction is associated with higher concentrations of particulate matter. CONCLUSIONS: We found evidence that exposure to oil and gas well sites is associated with increased risk of spontaneous preterm birth.

Mercury exposure, risk factors, and perceptions among women of childbearing age in an artisanal gold mining region of the Peruvian Amazon.

Recent studies from the Madre de Dios region of Peru report elevated mercury exposure among the general population. Our objective was to assess mercury exposure, risk factors, risk perceptions, and knowledge among women of childbearing age, a population of concern due to risks to infant and fetal health. We collected hair samples and administered a survey among 200 women aged 18-49 years residing in Madre de Dios. Hair total mercury (THg) concentrations were analyzed in accordance with EPA Method 7473. Associations between exposures and potential risk factors were analyzed using generalized linear mixed models. Geometric mean hair THg concentration (±standard deviation) for all participants was 1.62 ±â€¯2.54 µg/g (range: 0.01-30.12 µg/g), and 67 participants (33.5%) had concentrations above the 2.2 µg/g reference dose established by the World Health Organization (WHO). Higher exposure was significantly associated with higher fish consumption (p = 0.03) and less mercury knowledge (p < 0.0001), but not with age or educational attainment. Most participants (86.2%) expressed concern about mercury contamination, but few (26.2%) had knowledge of the health risks associated with exposure. Many residents consumed fish species previously found to have low mercury concentrations, but more than 25% of participants reported consuming fish species with high mercury concentrations. We did not observe cross-sectional differences in fish intake among women who were pregnant or breastfeeding at the time of data collection.