Coal pollution, disease linked in WVU study
By Scott Finn
Living in a coal-mining community may be hazardous to your health. That’s according to a new study by a WVU researcher to be published in the April issue of the American Journal of Public Health.
Researcher Michael Hendryx found higher rates of kidney and lung disease and high blood pressure in West Virginia’s coal-producing counties. He says this is true even when you take into account differences in income and lifestyle.
Hendryx says he can’t say for sure what’s causing the increased rate of disease, but his working theory is exposure to coal dust and mining runoff…
March 28, 2008 at 1:28 pm
Hi! I’m Janet Whitaker, assistant to Al Cross at the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, writing to let you know your story on disease in coal-mining communities was excerpted in the 3/26/08 Rural Blog, our almost-daily digest of events, trends, issues, ideas and journalism about rural America. To see your story and the rest of the blog, go to
http://irjci.blogspot.com/2008/03/west-virginia-study-finds-higher-rates.html