The importance of determining the social and economic impacts of OCS petroleum extraction in a region that has rarely been studied prompted MMS to fund such research under the Environmental Studies Program and the University Research Initiative. The data used included two indicators of petroleum industry activity, four measures of social problems, five indicators of educational impacts, and six measures of community economic health. The data for the petroleum activity measures, social problems indicators, and education variables were collected from the late 1950s through the late 1980s while the data for the economic measures were obtained from the late 1960s through the late 1980s. Percentage chances were used for decennial economic data. OCS activity has had an impact on social problems, educational attainment and strain, and community economic health.
Some impacts are negative, some are positive.
The impacts are more complex than expected based on previous studies in that the results for all three types of impacts suggest a cycle of effects besides the obvious boom and bust cycle. The increase in suicides and homicides between the preboom and bust in involved parish groups is greater than would be expected based on the national trends for these variables. There is some economic gain in involved parishes when petroleum activity is greater, but this improvement in community economic health is transitory. There is more evidence of serious economic problems in the bust than evidence of economic gain during the period of rapid increases in petroleum activity. The increase from the preboom to the bust in income is less than would be expected based on the national trend while the increase in transfer payments is greater than would be expected.