Parental Education and Child Physical Health Following the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

Abstract

Purpose:

To assess whether trajectories of children’s physical health problems differ by parental college degree attainment in Louisiana areas highly impacted by the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill (BP-DHOS).

Design:

Three waves of panel data (2014, 2016, and 2018) from the Gulf Coast Population Impact / Resilient Children, Youth, and Communities studies.

Setting:

BP-DHOS-impacted communities in coastal Louisiana.

Participants:

Parents of children aged 4-18 in a longitudinal probability sample (n = 392).

Measures:

Reported child physical health problems from the BP-DHOS, parental college degree attainment, and covariates.

Analysis:

Linear growth curve models are used to assess initial levels of and the rate of change in child physical unknown. The current study uses 3 waves physical health problems by parental college degree attainment. Explanatory variables are measured at baseline and the outcome variable is measured at all 3 waves.

Results:

Compared to children of parents without college degrees, children of college graduates had fewer initial health problems in 2014 (b = −.33; p = .02). Yet, this health advantage decreased over time, as indicated by their positive rate of change (b = .22; p = .01), such that the higher education health advantage was not statistically significant by 2018.

Conclusion:

Children of college graduates experienced a physical health advantage following the BP-DHOS, but this gap closed over time. The closure of the gap was due to the children of college graduates experiencing significant increases in reported health problems over the study period.

Keywords

disaster environmental health health policy opportunity strategies health disparities BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill longitudinal children parental education

The 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill (BP-DHOS) is the largest oil spill on record according to amount of shoreline affected.¹ Longitudinal community-based research on the effects of the BP-DHOS have been sparse. Parental educational attainment is a resource identified to mitigate the child health impacts of the BP-DHOS but its relation to trajectories of child health is in this context unknown.² The current study uses 3 waves (2014, 2016, and 2018) of longitudinal data from a probability sample in coastal Louisiana areas highly impacted by the BP-DHOS. Because of the direct connections between the BP-DHOS and children’s physical health, we focus on the reported number of children’s physical health problems.³ We examine parental (note 1) educational attainment due to its importance for child health in previous research.⁴

Data and Methods

The analysis relies on longitudinal data (n = 655) from the 2014 Gulf Coast Population Impact (GCPI) study and 2016 (n = 482) and 2018 (n = 481) follow-up data from the Resilient Children, Youth, and Communities (RCYC) study. The GCPI and RCYC surveyed the same sample of households at all 3 time points. These data are valuable given our objectives because they provide information on children, parents, and household circumstances, track the health of children over time, and are generalizable to the BP-DHOS-affected areas under study. The ages of children studied range from 4 to 18. Institutional Review Boards approval was obtained for the data collection and study procedures at Louisiana State University and Columbia University.^2,5,6

Measures

Data were collected through in-person interviews with an adult parent in the household. The number of child physical health problems were defined as whether the child had respiratory symptoms, vision problems, skin problems, headaches, and/or unusual bleeding (range: 0-5) in the preceding 2 months. Parental educational attainment was measured using an indicator of college degree attainment (1 = bachelor’s degree or greater). Covariates include total people in the household, child gender, child age, parental gender, parental age, parental race-ethnicity, parental marital status, BP-DHOS physical exposure (touching/smelling the oil spill), BP-DHOS economic exposure (job/income loss due to oil spill), and survey wave. Explanatory variables are measured at baseline and the outcome variable is measured at all 3 waves.

Analysis

To examine initial levels of and changes in child health problems following the BP-DHOS, we use linear growth curve modeling. Growth curve modeling requires nonmissing outcome values for at least 3 waves, resulting in an analytic sample of 392 respondents. We first estimated an unconditional growth model. We then estimated the effects of parental education and covariates on average initial levels of and rate of change in child health problems. Additional details on sample characteristics, measurement, and analytic method are reported in Supplement Section 1.

Results

Supplement Section 2, Table S1 shows study variable descriptive statistics for the full sample and by parental college degree attainment. Twenty-two percent of parents in the sample had a college degree. Children’s health problems had a mean of 1.07 at baseline in 2014 and increased modestly at each time point, reaching 1.26 in 2018. In 2014, children of college graduates had fewer initial health problems (mean = .67) compared to children of parents without college degrees (mean = 1.18). This parental education gap in child health problems (1.18-.76 = .51) narrows in 2016 (1.24-.92 = .32) and becomes negligible by 2018 (1.29-1.17 = .12).

In Table 1, Model 1, an unconditional linear growth curve model shows that the average initial level of child health problems was 1.07 (p < .001) and health problems had an upward.¹⁰ (p = .005) rate of change such that children generally had more health problems over time. The intraclass correlation (ICC) from a model predicting child physical health problems with no covariates was .54 (p < .001), indicating that reported child health problems are highly correlated within individuals. A likelihood ratio test indicated that the unconditional growth curve shown in Model 1 provided a better fit compared to a model that only includes variance components for the intercept [LR chi2 (df 2) = 14.68 (p < .001)].

Table 1.

Linear Growth Curve Models of Child Health Problems.

	lntercept			Slope
	b	P	95% CI	b	P	95% CI
Model 1
Constant	1.07	0.000	0.95-1.19	0.10	0.005	0.03-0.17
Variance Components
Random Intercept	0.87
Random Slope				0.08
Covariance (lntercept, Slope)	0.05
Residual Error	0.79
Model 2
Constant	0.41	0.019	0.07-0.74	0.16	0.126	−0.04-0.36
College degree	−0.33	0.020	−0.61-−0.05	0.22	0.011	0.05-0.38
Variance Components
Random Intercept	0.55
Random Slope				0.04
Covariance (Intercept, Slope)	0.12
Residual Error	0.79

Source: GCPI/RCYC Study (n = 392).

Note: b = co efficient: SE = standard error: P = two-tailed P-value; CI = confidence interval; model 2 controls total people in household, child gender, child age, guardian gender, guardian age, guardian race-ethnicity, guardian marital status, DHOS physical exposure, DHOS economic exposure, and survey wave.

Model 2 adds college degree attainment and covariates and shows that parental college degree attainment was associated with both initial level of child health problems and child health problem rate of change (see Figure 1). Compared to children of parents without a college degree, college attainment was related to lower levels of child health problems at baseline (b = −.33; p = .02), net of covariates. Yet, the rate of change (b = .22; p = .01) was positive such that the college degree advantage lessened over the study period. Pchange in child health problem arental college degree is positively associated with initial values of child health problems, but negatively associated with the rate of change in child health problems; this We assess trajectories of children’s indicates a narrowing child health divide across study waves between children of college graduates versus children without college educated parents. Ancillary analysis using 3 categories of educational attainment is shown in Supplement Section 3.

Figure 1.

Predicted values of child physical health problems across survey years by parental college degree attainment. Note: predicted values presented, net of covariates shown in Table 1, Model 2. CI = confidence interval.

Discussion

This study shows substantial gaps in child physical health problems by parental educational attainment even after controlling for a range of potentially confounding factors. We found that parental college degree attainment was associated with 1) fewer physical health problems among children following the BP-DHOS in 2014, and 2) a differential rate of change in these health problems. Specifically, whereas children of parents without college degrees consistently had higher levels of health problems over the study period, children of college graduates experienced significant increases in reported health problems from 2014 to 2018. As a result, among parents with college degrees, the lower initial level of reported child health problems in 2014 narrowed in 2016 and closed in 2018. As a multifaceted social resource, higher education may have enabled parents to safeguard children from initial negative health impacts of the oil spill through better knowledge and health behaviors associated with higher education.⁷

We note several limitations to this study. All data, including child health information, came from interviews with an adult parent in the household. Though we control for parent and household background characteristics, we cannot exclude the possibility that unmeasured parent characteristics introduce imprecision. In addition, though this study’s probability sample is a strength, a larger sample could facilitate more granular analysis over time and within subpopulations. Finally, as is common in disaster research, our “baseline” data did not precede the BP-DHOS; indeed, they were collected 4 years after the onset of the spill. Therefore, our BP-DHOS exposure variables (physical and economic) were based on retrospective self-reports and thus subject to recall bias, attribution error, and subjective interpretations of experiences. This is a common limitation in disaster research because such events are, by definition, unanticipated; it takes time to acquire funding and develop study protocols; and there are ethical considerations in surveying people in the immediate aftermath of such an event. Moreover, it would be preferable to be able to validate respondents’ recollections with other objective measures of spill exposure. That said, the impacts of disasters on well-being do also depend in part on people’s subjective definition of the situation and appraisals of stressors, with their perceptions of impacts being real in their consequences.

In environmentally vulnerable areas such as coastal Louisiana, residents’ differential social resources can drive important health inequalities. The current study shows that parental college degree attainment may have made children less vulnerable to the immediate physical health impacts of the BP-DHOS, though in the long run that protective effect wanes. This finding has implications for bolstering initial disaster resilience through improving college degree attainment in communities vulnerable to disaster risk. In addition to the direct consequences of child health problems (e.g., lost days of school and parental work), long-range influences into adulthood include deleterious impacts on educational success, earnings, and later life health.⁸ Policymakers can address educational inequalities in order to safeguard the health of children. Improving parents’ college degree attainment may have the benefit of ensuring parental health, family stability, and economic status—all benefits with their own potential added contributions to the health of parents’ children.⁹ Future research should investigate how educational health gradients might vary in communities vulnerable to environmental disasters and how those gradients shape the long-term well-being of children across the life course.

These results have implications for policies bolstering initial disaster resilience among children through improving college degree attainment in communities vulnerable to disaster risk.

So What?

What is already known on this topic?

Parental education is a resource identified to mitigate the child health impacts of the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill (BP-DHOS).

What does this article add?

We assess trajectories of children’s physical college degree attainment may have the in order to safeguard the health of children. Improving parents health and find that children of college graduates experienced a physical health advantage following the BP-DHOS, but this advantage lessened over time.

What are the implications for health promotion practice or research?

These results have implications for policies bolstering initial disaster resilience among children through improving college degree attainment in communities vulnerable to disaster risk.

Supplemental Material

Supplemental Material, sj-pdf-1-ahp-10.1177_08901171211041424 - Parental Education and Child Physical Health Following the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

Supplemental Material, sj-pdf-1-ahp-10.1177_08901171211041424 for Parental Education and Child Physical Health Following the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill by Samuel Stroope, Rhiannon A. Kroeger, Tim Slack, Kathryn Sweet Keating, Jaishree Beedasy, Thomas Chandler, Jonathan J. Sury and Jeremy Brooks in American Journal of Health Promotion

Supplemental Material

Supplemental Material, sj-xlsx-1-ahp-10.1177_08901171211041424 - Parental Education and Child Physical Health Following the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

Supplemental Material, sj-xlsx-1-ahp-10.1177_08901171211041424 for Parental Education and Child Physical Health Following the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill by Samuel Stroope, Rhiannon A. Kroeger, Tim Slack, Kathryn Sweet Keating, Jaishree Beedasy, Thomas Chandler, Jonathan J. Sury and Jeremy Brooks in American Journal of Health Promotion

Footnotes

Acknowledgments

We thank all those who participated in the Resilient Children, Youth, and Communities (RCYC) study. This research was made possible by grants from the Baton Rouge Area Foundation and the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI). Data funded by GoMRI are publicly available through the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative Information & Data Cooperative (GRIIDC) at (doi: 10.7266/n7-hjz4-w930. doi: 10.7266/n7-9ftv-yd07). The scientific results and conclusions, as well as any views or opinions expressed herein, are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the RESTORE Council.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was made possible by grants from the Baton Rouge Area Foundation and the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI).

ORCID iDs

Samuel Stroope

Tim Slack

Supplemental Material

Supplemental material for this article is available online.

Note

A small number of participants were non-parent guardians.

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Supplementary Material

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