OIL SPILL
When the Exxon Valdez ran aground in Prince William Sound in March 1989, "it spilled oil into a social as well as natural environment." That spill resulted in increased rates of depressive symptoms, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress disorder, especially among women and Alaskan natives, reports Lawrence A. Palinkas, Ph.D., and colleagues at the Uvinversity of California at San Diego. A year after the spill, they surveyed residents of 11 communities that were hard or moderately hit by the spill, and two communities that were not. "Only further research will determine whether these effects are transient or whether they are consequences of permanent changes in the social, cultural, and economic fabric of these communities," the team reports in a recent issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry (Vol. 150, No. 10)
