Quality of Life and Stress Effects in Communities with Oil and Gas Development

描述(申请人提供)：定向钻井和水力压裂技术的进步导致了美国石油储备的生产热潮。石油和天然气开发侵占人口稠密地区的情况越来越普遍，使居民暴露在一系列影响健康和生活质量的化学、物理和心理社会应激源之下。关于这一主题的实质性研究很少。我们寻求时间敏感的资金，因为最近科罗拉多州柯林斯堡的市政暂停石油和天然气钻探打开了一扇机会之窗，可以将这个未受影响的社区的生活质量和健康影响的亚临床生物标记物的变化与附近的科罗拉多州格里利的社区进行比较，在那里，没有暂停和正在进行的石油和天然气开发。使用纵向设计，我们将检验这一假设，即与没有石油和天然气开发的人群相比，生活在石油和天然气开发附近的人群经历了生活质量下降，以及应激、心血管健康和炎症等亚临床生物标志物的可测量变化。我们将使用有效问卷，测量两地近400名居民在石油和天然气开发之前、期间和之后的生活质量变化。我们还将收集每个社区30名受试者的亚临床生物标记物的重复测量。这些亚临床生物标记物是基于对生物途径的分析而选择的，这些生物途径将心理社会应激和空气污染与心血管功能、系统性炎症和随后的不良健康后果联系起来。通过收集基线测量和前瞻性跟踪这两个人群，这项工作将开发设计和促进后续前瞻性研究所需的数据、工具和社区网络，这些研究将提供与这一快速发展的行业相关的健康影响的洞察。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Technological advances in directional drilling and hydraulic fracturing have resulted in a production boom of US petroleum reserves. It is increasingly common for oil and natural gas development to encroach on populated areas, exposing residents to a range of chemical, physical and psychosocial stressors that impact health and QOL. Little substantive research exists on this topic. We seek time-sensitive funding because a recent municipal moratorium on oil and gas drilling in Fort Collins, Colorado has opened a window of opportunity to compare changes in quality of life and subclinical biomarkers of health effects in this unaffected community to those in nearby Greeley, CO, where there is no moratorium and ongoing oil and gas development. Using a longitudinal design we will test the hypothesis that a population living in close proximity to oil and gas development experiences decreased quality of life and measureable changes in subclinical biomarkers of stress, cardiovascular health, and inflammation compared to a population without oil and gas development. We will measure changes in quality of life before, during and after oil and gas development in nearly 400 residents from both locations using a validated questionnaire. We will also collect repeat measures of subclinical biomarkers of effect for 30 subjects in each community. These subclinical biomarkers were chosen based on an analysis of biologic pathways that link psychosocial stress and air pollution to changes in cardiovascular function, systematic inflammation, and subsequent adverse health outcomes. By collecting baseline measurements and prospectively following these two populations, this work will develop data, tools and community networks needed to design and facilitate subsequent prospective studies that will provide insight on the health effects associated with this rapidly expanding industry.