Air Monitoring Stations Far Removed From Drilling Activities Do Not Represent Residential Exposures to Marcellus Shale Air Pollutants. Response to the Paper by Hess et al. on Proximity-Based Unconventional Natural Gas Exposure Metrics

摘要

In their study “Assessing Agreement in Exposure Classification between Proximity-Based Metrics and Air Monitoring Data in Epidemiology Studies of Unconventional Resource Development” Hess et al. perform a validation of the well-activity (WA) proximity models used in epidemiologic research studies of unconventional natural gas development (UNGD) [ ]. The study lacks sufficient evidence to support the authors’ conclusion that there is significant exposure misclassification in the epidemiology that finds health effects around unconventional oil and gas (O&G) wells. Major flaws in the Hess et al. study’s validation method include inappropriate selection of air pollution data, missing information on other air pollution sources and meteorology, inappropriate choice of statistical methods, and misrepresentation of the purpose of proximity metrics used in epidemiological studies. These substantial shortcomings negate the study’s ability to answer the question: does a WA proximity metric correlate with actual levels of air pollutants in a region with UNGD?