Exploring Mental Health Consequences of Disaster Cleanup Work.

In the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, studies have found links between the physical health of cleanup workers and their mental health symptoms.

But a new study, co-authored by a School of Public Health researcher, found that the mental health of recovery workers also is influenced by “indirect” factors, such as household income level and duration of the cleanup work. While overall, recovery work exposure was associated with higher levels of post-traumatic stress, major depression, and generalized anxiety disorder, longer duration of work and higher income mitigated those adverse effects.

The findings, published in the American Journal of Community Psychology, suggest that “disaster work is not a uniformly negative experience, as higher levels of household income, potentially from longer duration of cleanup work and work that involves greater exposure to oil, can have psychological benefits,” wrote the study team, which includes Dean Sandro Galea, Robert A. Knox Professor at BU. “It is possible that efforts to boost financial compensation among workers with lower paying jobs, combined with ongoing monitoring of workers for psychiatric symptoms, could reduce the overall mental health burden of cleanup work.”

The findings also suggest that efforts to reduce physical problems during cleanup work, such as ongoing training and the use of protective equipment, could protect against post-traumatic stress, depression, and anxiety.

The study included close to 8,000 workers who participated in the cleanup after BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in 2010, spilling an estimated 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. The workers, who were compared to a control group of non-workers, provided details of their cleanup tasks, dates worked, and physical and mental health symptoms.

Workers had higher levels of all three classes of psychiatric symptoms than non-workers. But among the subgroup of workers only, longer duration of work and higher income were each associated with lower depression and anxiety disorder.

The authors speculated that both longer work duration and higher income may serve as “markers of job stability, which could ease general anxiety and hopelessness about the future,” while not protecting against symptoms related to trauma exposure. They allowed that the “direction of causality” could be reversed, such that workers with lower levels of pre-existing depression and anxiety might be more likely to secure higher-paying, long-term jobs.

The study bolsters previous evidence linking oil-spill cleanup work to physical health problems, including asthma, emphysema, and heart disease.

The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health. It was led by Sarah Lowe of the Department of Psychology at Monclair State University, with co-authors from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, RTI International, and the Gillings School of Global Public Health at the University of North Carolina.

—Lisa Chedekel