I remember seeing some statistics when I lived in St. George 15 years ago (like high school dropouts) from 18 years after the tests. There was a huge increase in dropouts (and other negative indicators) as the downwinder babies reached adulthood.
I wouldn't trust statistics like that unless they had strong differences betweeen other cities over the same time period. There's been a hell of a lot of social change over the last half century, assuming something like dropout rates should remain constant over a period of decades is a non-starter.
It's abundantly clear that the people near the Nevada Test Site suffered hugely from cancer because of these aboveground tests. This national shame is documented in disturbing detail in the book. (It has 11 reviews on Amazon, all 5-star reviews.)
Some shots were particularly dirty, with unexpectedly much fallout. They couldn't/didn't predict this in advance, it was just bad luck if you happened to be nearby when one of these dirty tests went off.
I remember seeing some statistics when I lived in St. George 15 years ago (like high school dropouts) from 18 years after the tests. There was a huge increase in dropouts (and other negative indicators) as the downwinder babies reached adulthood.