Lessons for study of the health effects of oil spills.

Each environmental disaster is unique, with health consequences that depend on the intersection of the event, the geographic setting, and the characteristics of the local population. Yet, all environmental disasters require the identification of health consequences and strategies to mitigate them and provide lessons for how to do better in future disasters (1–6). The Prestige oil spill and the rigorous health effects research that has followed (7–9) have direct relevance for the affected population but are also part of the broader body of disaster epidemiology that includes study of chemical explosions in Bhopal, India, and Seveso, Italy; the Chernobyl nuclear disaster; and the World Trade Center attack. In this issue, the report by Rodríguez-Trigo and colleagues of health effects in fishermen who helped clean up the Prestige oil spill (7) provides an opportunity to consider practices that will facilitate study of health effects among the 50 000 workers and others exposed during the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill and future incidents.