Pregnant people living near sites where gas is flared face an elevated risk of giving birth preterm, a new study found. The research, published by scientists from UCLA and the University of Southern California in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, reviewed more than 23,000 live births in the Eagle Ford Shale basin in Texas and found people who lived within 3 miles of 10 or more nightly flaring events were 50% more likely to give birth preterm than people living farther away. Hispanic and Latinx parents made up 55% of the study’s participants and were by far more vulnerable to the impacts of flaring. Even though non-Hispanic white people made up 35% of those who experienced high exposure to flaring, those people did not experience the same impacts. “I think that racial disparity is an important finding, and we need more research on the reasons behind it,” Jill Johnston, one of the study’s lead authors and an environmental health scientist at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California, told Environmental Health News. “It’s possible that a lifetime of discrimination and social stressors are driving factors here.” (Environmental Health News, Reuters, Houston Chronicle, E&E $, The Hill)