WHYY By A hydraulic fracturing drill rig in Bradford County. (Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA/Landov) This story originally appeared on StateImapct Pennsylvania. ___ Heart failure patients who live near fracking operations were more likely to be hospitalized than those who live farther away, according to a new study. Researchers at Drexel and Johns Hopkins studied medical records of 12,000 heart patients in Pennsylvania between 2008 and 2015. The authors reported “significantly increased odds of hospitalization among heart failure subjects in relation to increasing” fracking activity in the area near them. Heart failure includes any condition, like a heart attack, that leads to the inability of the heart to pump enough blood to meet the body’s needs.