Researchers propose a ‘nocebo effect’ in Flint’s water crisis

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2023-04-03 14:42

New Zealand; International

PHOTO: Luann Hunt/Unsplash

In 2014, the US city of Flint, Michigan changed its drinking water supply and treatment processes, which led to increased lead levels in tap water and children’s blood. Researchers have now looked back at the rates of blood lead in Flint’s kids over the course of a decade, including the Flint Water Crisis period between 2014-15, and found their rate of blood lead was always at least 47% lower than nearby Detroit, and never significantly higher than the state as a whole. Regardless, the study found Flint kids’ enrolment in special education spiked relative to Detroit. The researchers argue that the negative psychological effects associated with media predictions of brain damage could have created a self-fulfilling prophecy via a ‘nocebo’ effect.

Attachments

Note: Not all attachments are visible to the general public. Research URLs will go live after the embargo ends.

Research , Web page

Journal/
conference: Clinical Psychology in Europe

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: University of Auckland, Virginia Tech, USA; University of North Carolina, USA;

Funder: Funding: US Environmental Protection Agency (#8399375); Spring Point Partners, LLC. Competing interests: MAE and SR worked with Flint residents to expose the Flint Water Crisis, and their data, testimony and emails have been subpoenaed in several lawsuits. They are not party to any of these lawsuits. MAE has been subpoenaed as a fact witness in many of the lawsuits, but he has refused all financial compensation for time spent on those activities. SR is serving as a scientific consultant in a Flint lawsuit for VNA starting December 21 2022 on biosolids research, a topic unrelated to this manuscript, and is expected to be financially compensated for that work. All other authors declare they have no competing interests.

Media Contact/s

Contact details are only visible to registered journalists.