Study shows higher COVID-19 infection rates in communities most exposed to oil and gas production
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In California, more than one million people live within one kilometer (0.65 miles) of an active oil and gas well. But hazards posed by proximity to oil and gas production have been understudied.
The ongoing threats of COVID-19 and other infectious diseases have placed renewed emphasis on the need to understand the health risks of living near oil and gas wells.
To that end, researchers led by UC Berkeley School of Public Health investigated whether people living close to active oil and gas production had higher rates of COVID-19 and higher mortality from the disease from February 2020 to January 2021.
Their results, published this month in GeoHealth, a journal of the American Geophysical Union, show that communities that are located within 1 kilometer from active oil and gas wells were more likely to have higher COVID-19 cases during the first four months of the pandemic than demographically comparable communities that were further away—especially when production levels were high.
“In the first four months of the study period, from February to May 2020, block groups in the highest tertile of oil and gas production exposure had 34% higher case rates and 55% higher mortality rates than those with no estimated production, after accounting for area-level covariates,” the authors wrote.
Helena Archer, a postdoctoral fellow in the Sustainability and Health Equity Lab (SHE lab) run by BPH professor Rachel Morello-Frosch, said, “While further research is needed to understand how these hazards are linked, the most important finding is that we saw these higher rates in communities that we know are disproportionately exposed to oil and gas production.”
“Our goal is to better understand the health impacts of living near active wells. We know that communities of color are disproportionately exposed. It’s something that calls for more research and understanding.”
When analyzing COVID-19 cases that occurred during the whole study period, researchers only found higher case rates of Covid-19 – and mortality from Covid-19– in communities with the highest amount of oil production. According to the research team, this may be due to the fact that severe and symptomatic cases were more likely to be tested and identified early on, linking living near wells and severity, but may also represent differences in communities that could not be measured in the study or other limitations to the study design.
The report is part of a larger series SHE Lab is working on, examining environmental exposures in California and COVID-19, including ambient air pollution and chemical contaminants in water systems.