June 22, 2010(USA TODAY) -- For humans, the psychological effects of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico could be as devastating as the physical, say experts who will speak at an Institute of Medicine workshop today in New Orleans.
"There's a lot of social disruption. That's what technological disasters tend to do," says Lawrence Palinkas, a professor of social work at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. He will be speaking on the spill's potential long-term effects.
Especially because of hurricanes Katrina and Gustav, people are telling doctors it's as if there were this lid on top of their feelings and "all of a sudden it's come off," says Howard Osofsky, chair of the psychiatry department at Louisiana State University. "We're seeing indications that people are drinking more. We are also beginning to see some indication of increased domestic conflict." He plans to present early findings about the psychological health of people in the region today.
Palinkas was part of a team that studied 600 households in 16 communities affected by the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989.
"We were able to document a dose-response relationship," he says. Greater exposure to damage in fishing areas or exposure to the oil "in any way, shape or form produced very pronounced effects in increased psychological problems, depression, anxiety, conflict within communities and changes in the behavior of children."
It's believed that the effects on the ability of people to make a living, the damage to the areas they lived in, social, economic and cultural dislocation, and even the quick money that came from working on cleanup crews disrupted communities and affected mental health, Palinkas says.
The IOM two-day workshop will assess the human health effects of the oil spill, featuring experts who have worked on major spills in Alaska, Spain and elsewhere.
Previous spills haven't always been well-studied. One innovation introduced after 9/11 was the creation of registries of people who might have been exposed to toxic materials at the site. In the Gulf of Mexico spill, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health already has assembled a roster of more than 10,000 workers who will be followed long-term, says Linda Rosenstock, dean of UCLA's school of public health.
In addition, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is doing surveillance monitoring of hospital, clinical and pharmacy records in the area to see whether there are changes over time.
That kind of long-term oversight is key, says Bernard D. Goldstein of the University of Pittsburgh, who will speak today. "There's far more exposure assessment being done than there had been in the past," he says. Without that, it's not possible to look back 20 years later to see whether there's a link between, say, cancer rates among residents and a chemical they might have been exposed to.
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