Health Impacts of Flaring from Oil and Gas Development with Lara Cushing, PhD, MPH

Описание: About the lecture: Oil production in the US has nearly doubled in the last decade due to technological advances in hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") and horizontal drilling that have enabled the development of previously inaccessible formations. More than 17 million people now live within a mile of an oil or gas well, and several studies have linked residence near wells during pregnancy with elevated risks of adverse birth outcomes. However, no studies have yet examined the health impacts of flaring – the largely unregulated controlled combustion of waste gases – in areas of oil development. This talk will present on work utilizing satellite observations to estimate exposure to flaring in the Eagle Ford Shale of South Texas. Dr. Cushing will share recent findings linking exposure to flaring with preterm birth and discuss the environmental justice implications of oil and gas development in the Eagle Ford.

About the speaker: Dr. Lara Cushing is Assistant Professor of Environmental Health Sciences in the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. Her research focuses on social inequalities in exposure to environmental hazards, and race and class determinants of environmental health disparities. Her work has investigated questions of environmental justice in the context of air pollutant emissions and hazardous sites, urban greenspace, oil and gas drilling, and climate change mitigation. Current projects are investigating the health impacts of oil and gas development on pregnant women & infants, flooding of contaminated sites due to sea level rise, and the interactions between environmental and social stressors to health during pregnancy. She is an JPB Environmental Health Fellow through the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and a former Environmental Fellow of the Robert & Patricia Switzer Foundation. She received her MPH in Epidemiology and PhD in Energy & Resources from the University of California, Berkeley, and served on the faculty of San Francisco State University from 2016-2020.