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Children born in mountaintop-mining counties across Appalachia may suffer elevated risks of birth defects, concludes a forthcoming study.
Nationwide, about 1 in 33 babies suffer a birth defect, the leading cause of infant deaths. In the upcoming Environmental Research journal study, investigators report that children born in counties home to mountaintop coal mines had a 26% higher risk of suffering one of those birth defects, compared to ones born in non-mining regions.
“A number of studies had found health risks associated with coal mining regions,” including low birth weight, says health economist Melissa Ahern of Washington State University in Spokane, who led the study. Mountaintop mining, where coal seams are exposed by blasting off the tops of elevations, has been linked to air and water pollution, so Ahern and colleagues decided to look for health effects on infants across four states (West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia) where it occurs. Over the course of the study, mountaintop removal mining produced 882 million tons of coal from the states under investigation.
Looking at the 1,889,071 births in those states from 1996 to 2003, the researchers first found birth defects were higher in six of seven categories (including heart, lung and gastrointestinal birth defects) in mountaintop mining counties compared to elsewhere. “Rates for any anomaly were approximately 235 per 10,000 live births in the mountaintop mining area versus 144 per 10,000 live births in the non-mining area.”
However, poverty has also been linked to birth defects. So the researchers controlled for social factors, such as smoking, drinking, mother’s education, race and other poverty-related factors, and the team found the effect was still statistically significant, leading to the 26% higher risk of birth defects in the mountaintop mining counties.
content.usatoday.com/communities/sciencefair/post/2011/06/study-mountaintop-mining-raises-birth-defect-risks/1
Nationwide, about 1 in 33 babies suffer a birth defect, the leading cause of infant deaths. In the upcoming Environmental Research journal study, investigators report that children born in counties home to mountaintop coal mines had a 26% higher risk of suffering one of those birth defects, compared to ones born in non-mining regions.
“A number of studies had found health risks associated with coal mining regions,” including low birth weight, says health economist Melissa Ahern of Washington State University in Spokane, who led the study. Mountaintop mining, where coal seams are exposed by blasting off the tops of elevations, has been linked to air and water pollution, so Ahern and colleagues decided to look for health effects on infants across four states (West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia) where it occurs. Over the course of the study, mountaintop removal mining produced 882 million tons of coal from the states under investigation.
Looking at the 1,889,071 births in those states from 1996 to 2003, the researchers first found birth defects were higher in six of seven categories (including heart, lung and gastrointestinal birth defects) in mountaintop mining counties compared to elsewhere. “Rates for any anomaly were approximately 235 per 10,000 live births in the mountaintop mining area versus 144 per 10,000 live births in the non-mining area.”
However, poverty has also been linked to birth defects. So the researchers controlled for social factors, such as smoking, drinking, mother’s education, race and other poverty-related factors, and the team found the effect was still statistically significant, leading to the 26% higher risk of birth defects in the mountaintop mining counties.
content.usatoday.com/communities/sciencefair/post/2011/06/study-mountaintop-mining-raises-birth-defect-risks/1