Reproductive outcomes among former Love Canal residents, Niagara Falls, New York.

Love Canal, located in Niagara Falls, NY, and among the earliest and most significant hazardous waste sites in the United States, first came to public attention in 1978. In this study, researchers evaluated 1799 live births from 1960 through 1996 to 980 women who formerly lived in the Love Canal Emergency Declaration Area and were of reproductive age sometime during that time period. Using Upstate New York and Niagara County as external comparison populations, standardized incidence ratios with 95% confidence intervals were calculated for low birth weight, preterm birth, small for gestational age, and congenital malformations, and unadjusted proportions of male to female births were calculated. Internal comparisons among the infants were also performed according to several measures of potential exposure using generalized estimating equations.