Environment/Climate Change
Associations between Oil and Gas Development and Asthma Emergency Department Visits in California Erin Polka* Erin Polka Jonathan Buonocore Erin Campbell Mary Willis
Background: Oil and gas development (OGD) emits hazardous air pollutants associated with a range of respiratory diseases and are often sited near established communities. However, few studies have analyzed the association between OGD activity and asthma exacerbations. Our objective was to estimate the association between asthma emergency department (ED) visits and proximity to OGD in California.
Methods: We obtained aggregated data on total asthma ED visits at the zip code level for each year 2013-2020 from California Health and Human Services Agency (n= 1,304,897 visits). Using a novel publicly-available database on active OGD sites, we assessed exposure to OGD for each zip code, operationalized as density of OGD activity nearby (i.e., new sites/km2 in a given zip code-year). We implemented negative binomial regression models to estimate incidence rate ratios (IRR) and 95% CI, adjusting for spatial-temporal variation and an offset for population size.
Results: IRRs across tertiles of OGD density were 0.89 (95% CI: 0.78, 1.00), 0.93 (95% CI: 0.82, 1.05), and 1.11 (95% CI: 0.98, 1.25), respectively.
Discussion: After controlling for spatial-temporal variation and population size, our preliminary results showed that zip codes with highest OGD density were associated with an increased rate of asthma hospitalizations compared to zip codes with no OGD density. However, contrary to our hypothesis, preliminary results also showed that zip codes with lowest OGD density had reduced rates of asthma hospitalizations. Future analyses will explore environmental co-exposures (e.g., wildfire smoke) and economic changes (e.g., resource extraction booms) to better understand this complex association.