COLLECT EXPOSURE AND MEDICAL HISTORIES FROM WORKERS AS EARLY AS POSSIBLE

Each environmental disaster is unique, with health con-sequences 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 mit-igate them and provide lessons for how to do better in future disasters (1–6). The Prestige oil spill and the rigor-ous 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 in-cludes 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 Rodrı́guez-Trigo and colleagues of health effects in fisher-men 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 other persons exposed during the 2010 Deepwater Hori-zon spill and future incidents