GuLF Study

GuLF Study
photograph
Workers carry an oil containment boom, Venice, Louisiana, May 2010
Name of studyGulf Long-term Follow-up Study[1]
Initiated byUnited States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), June 2010
Conducted byNational Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS)
LaunchedSeptember 2010[2]
Principal investigatorDale Sandler, chief of epidemiology, Division of Intramural Research, NIEHS
Staff scientistRichard Kwok, Chronic Disease Epidemiology Group
Participants55,000 clean-up workers

The GuLF Study, or Gulf Long-term Follow-up Study, is a five-year research project examining the human-health consequences of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in April 2010.[1] The spill followed an explosion on a drilling rig leased by BP, the British oil company, and led to the release of over four million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, 48 miles off the coast of Louisiana in the United States.[3]

The study was set up in June that year by the United States Department of Health and Human Services. It is being conducted by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), part of the National Institutes of Health, and aims to recruit 55,000 of the 150,000 workers who volunteered or were employed to help clean up the spill. It is led by Dale Sandler, head of the NIEHS's epidemiology branch.[4]

  1. ^ a b "GuLF Study" (PDF). National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. September 9, 2012.
  2. ^ "NIH to launch Gulf oil spill health study". National Institutes of Health. September 7, 2010.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference UnifiedCommand was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Charles W. Schmidt, "Study to Examine Health Effects in "Deepwater Horizon" Oil Spill Cleanup workers", Environmental Health Perspectives, 119(5), May 2011.