The impact of induced earthquakes on mental health: evidence from the Dutch Lifelines Cohort Study

BACKGROUND: A growing body of literature demonstrates that exposure to events, such as natural disasters, accidents, or adverse life events, may increase the risk of physical and psychological distress. Despite this understanding, little is known about the health consequences of consistent exposure to human-made crises. To address this issue, we examine the long-term health effects of mining-induced earthquakes in the Northern Netherlands and study the heterogeneity of the effect across socioeconomic status (SES). METHODS: Large-scale individual health data is from the Dutch Lifelines biobank and cohort study with 148,700 participants from the Northern Netherlands. Earthquake data is from Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute. The main health outcomes are housing-related stress, depression, anxiety, and self-assessed health. The key independent variable is accumulated peak ground velocity. We use an individual-level fixed effects model to assess the health effects of induced earthquakes by controlling individual heterogeneity, especially migration preference. Further, we add the interaction terms of accumulated PGV and education level into the regression model to analyze the different effects of earthquakes across SES. RESULTS: We find an association between living in high-exposure areas and housing-related stress. The results also show that for each additional noticeable earthquake (PGV>0.5 cm/s), the probability of getting anxiety increases by 1.04% on average. Moreover, the number of noticeable earthquakes (PGV>0.5 cm/s) has an adverse impact on self-assessed health. After adding the interaction terms, considerable health effects disparities were observed between SES, with the highest health effects of earthquakes in the lowest SES groups. CONCLUSIONS: Our results indicate that the long-run effects of sequences of small shocks are more significant than previously believed. The low SES group was the most vulnerable population to induced earthquakes. KEY MESSAGES: • This paper aims to estimate the causal effects of mining-induced earthquakes on health by employing large-scale panel data from the Lifelines biobank and cohort study in the Northern Netherlands. • Our findings suggest that exposure to repeated earthquakes has a negative effect on housing-related stress, anxiety, and self-rated health.