ArticleJournal of health economics2018
Shale gas development and infant health: Evidence from Pennsylvania.
Article in Journal of health economics, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 50 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
50 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Oil and Gas Development and Adverse Birth Outcomes: A Qualitative and Quantitative Bias Analysis of the Epidemiologic Literature.Current environmental health reports · 2026Pooled it
- The public health impacts of mining in Australia.The Medical journal of Australia · 2025Pooled it
- A Systematic Review of the Epidemiologic Literature Assessing Health Outcomes in Populations Living near Oil and Natural Gas Operations: Study Quality and Future Recommendations.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2019Pooled it
- Exposure to coal-fired power plant emissions, unconventional natural gas development, and salivary miRNA profiles and asthma in children.Environmental research · 2026Article
- The Fire That Does Not Go Out: The Neglected Costs of Gas Flaring in Nigeria.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2026Article
- Article
- Original research article: popexposure: An open-source Python package to find the number of people residing near environmental hazards quickly and efficiently.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2025Article
- Revealed Comparative Disadvantage of Infants: Exposure to NAFTA and Birth Outcomes.Journal of international economics · 2025Article
- A Narrative Review of Spatial-Temporal Data Sources for Estimating Population-Level Exposures to Oil and Gas Development in the United States.Current environmental health reports · 2025Review
- The Causal Effect of Increasing Area-Level Income on Birth Outcomes and Pregnancy-Related Health: Estimates From the Marcellus Shale Boom Economy.Demography · 2024Article
- IMPACT OF REAL-LIFE ENVIRONMENTAL EXPOSURES ON REPRODUCTION: Evidence for reproductive health effects following exposure to hydraulic fracturing chemical mixtures.Reproduction (Cambridge, England) · 2024Review
- A National Study of the Associations between Hormonal Modulators in Hydraulic Fracturing Fluid Chemicals and Birth Outcomes in the United States of America: A County-Level Analysis.Environmental health perspectives · 2024Article
- Invited Perspective: Drilling Down into the Mechanisms Linking Oil and Gas Development to Adverse Perinatal Health Outcomes.Environmental health perspectives · 2024Article
- The human health effects of unconventional oil and gas development (UOGD): A scoping review of epidemiologic studies.Canadian journal of public health = Revue canadienne de sante publique · 2024Article
- Short-Term Increases in NOEnvironmental science & technology · 2024Article
- The Siren Song of Cicadas: Early-Life Pesticide Exposure and Later-Life Male Mortality.Journal of environmental economics and management · 2024Article
- The Mortality Effects of Winter Heating Prices.Economic journal (London, England) · 2024Article
- US drinking water quality: exposure risk profiles for seven legacy and emerging contaminants.Journal of exposure science & environmental epidemiology · 2024Review
- Residential proximity to unconventional oil and gas development and birth defects in Ohio.Environmental research · 2023Article
- It's electric! An environmental equity perspective on the lifecycle of our energy sources.Environmental epidemiology (Philadelphia, Pa.) · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
Abstract
This research exploits the introduction of shale gas wells in Pennsylvania in response to growing controversy around the drilling method of hydraulic fracturing. Using detailed location data on maternal addresses and GIS coordinates of gas wells, this study examines singleton births to mothers residing close to a shale gas well from 2003 to 2010 in Pennsylvania. The introduction of drilling increased low birth weight and decreased term birth weight on average among mothers living within 2.5 km of a well compared to mothers living within 2.5 km of a permitted well. Adverse effects were also detected using measures such as small for gestational age and APGAR scores, while no effects on gestation periods were found. In the intensive margin, an additional well is associated with a 7 percent increase in low birth weight, a 5 g reduction in term birth weight and a 3 percent increase in premature birth. These results are robust to other measures of infant health, many changes in specification and falsification tests. These findings suggest that shale gas development poses significant risks to human health.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.