The National Institutes of Health has awarded a University of Florida-led team more than $6.5 million to study the environmental and psychological effects of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on communities along the Gulf coasts of Florida and Alabama.
This grant will allow public health experts to expand on a study done in 2010 after the BP oil spill to determine people’s long-term ability to cope several years after a disaster.At that time researchers from UF and the University of Maryland interviewed residents in coastal communities of Alabama and Florida, including people here in Franklin County.
It was the first study ever conducted to assess the mental health of people not only in the aftermath of a disaster but while it unfolded.
Although the Floridians participating in the study did not have oil hit their communities, the fear of the potential for oil to enter their waters and beaches led to significantly higher levels of depression and substance abuse to nearly the same rates as Alabama residents who experienced oil reach their shorelines.
Researchers found that the ongoing stress, especially the loss of employment after the spill, affected the ability of residents in both counties to regulate their emotions and execute some cognitive tasks.
The grant will also support a range of other environmental, sociological and psychological studies which includes providing citizens with a source of trustworthy information about the health of seafood in the Gulf of Mexico.
Researchers will also use satellite and infrastructure data from before, during and after the oil spill to help determine how fish adapt to their new environments and where people are now catching fish.
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