Maternal residential proximity to unconventional gas development and perinatal outcomes among a diverse urban population in Texas.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

To assess associations between unconventional natural gas development (UGD) and perinatal outcomes.

Methods

We conducted a retrospective birth cohort study among 158,894 women with a birth or fetal death from November 30, 2010-November 29, 2012 in the Barnett Shale, in North Texas. We constructed three UGD-activity metrics by calculating the inverse distance-weighted sum of active wells within three separate geographic buffers surrounding the maternal residence: ≤½, 2, or 10-miles. We excluded women if the nearest well to her residence was >20 miles. Metrics were categorized by tertiles among women with ≥1 well within the respective buffer; women with zero wells ≤10 miles (the largest buffer) served as a common referent group. We used logistic or linear regression

SUBMITTER: Whitworth KW 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5522007 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature