Abstract
The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) was established in 2010 with $500 million in funding provided by British Petroleum over a 10‐year period to support research on the impacts of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and recovery. Contributions of the GoMRI program to date focused on human health are presented in more than 32 peer‐reviewed papers published between 2011 and May 2019. Primary findings from review of these papers are (i) the large quantity of dispersants used in the oil cleanup have been associated with human health concerns, including through obesogenicity, toxicity, and illnesses from aerosolization of the agents; (ii) oil contamination has been associated with potential for increases in harmful algal blooms and numbers of pathogenic Vibrio bacteria in oil‐impacted waters; and (iii) members of Gulf communities who are heavily reliant upon natural resources for their livelihoods were found to be vulnerable to high levels of life disruptions and institutional distrust. Positive correlations include a finding that a high level of community attachment was beneficial for recovery. Actions taken to improve disaster response and reduce stress‐associated health effects could lessen negative impacts of similar disasters in the future. Furthermore, GoMRI has supported annual conferences beginning in 2013 at which informative human health‐related presentations have been made. Based on this review, it is recommended that the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 be updated to include enhanced funding for oil spill impacts to human health.
Highlights
On 20 April 2010, the largest oil spill in U.S history to that time began when the Deepwater Horizon (DWH) drilling rig failed
After eight interviews with community health workers (CHWs) who were involved with the study, Lesen et al (2019) recommended that (1) disaster resilience studies should involve the community as much as possible, as those communities often see the research as valuable; (2) during the development phase, researchers should consult with community partners to avoid cultural conflict and obtain feedback on recruitment and research methodologies; (3) cultural norms and communication methods should be incorporated into researcher‐participant interactions; (4) community partners should be consulted when deciding how to disseminate results to the community; and (5) incorporating critical reflection and considerations of power dynamics in communities that have disaster history can empower community members and researchers by promoting ethically and socially just resilience research (Lesen et al, 2019)
The DWH oil spill response and recovery programs, including those directed toward funding of research, have had significant effects on the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) and its residents
Summary
On 20 April 2010, the largest oil spill in U.S history to that time began when the Deepwater Horizon (DWH) drilling rig failed. In its first years of operation, as its organizational structure was being established, block grant funding was awarded to each of the five Gulf States and to the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), totaling $45 million, to initiate research and establish baseline data for subsequent studies. This initial funding included money to support a Coast Guard cohort study (Rusiecki et al, 2018). The purpose of this paper is to summarize the contributions of GoMRI to human health research via the lens of health‐related publications that resulted from GoMRI funding and the numbers of health presentations that were enabled by GoMRI through the GOMOSES annual conferences it supported
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