NIOSH Testimony on Knitting Operations, Cotton Dust Rulemaking, September 1, 1982.

Details

• Corporate Authors:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Description:
  This testimony concerned the NIOSH review of a study of pulmonary function data for knitting industry workers. Pulmonary function data provided by a medical service for workers from 12 knitwear and nine hosiery factories in North Carolina had been reviewed. Altogether, 2287 workers were studied; for a subset of 1396 workers from seven knitwear and seven hosiery factories. Information on years in the industry was provided by the factory. An index of exposure to cotton dust based on elutriated dust exposure indicated that there may have been a trend toward larger percent shift decrements in pulmonary function as dust index increased. The authors of the original study had concluded that there was no convincing evidence that the workers were subject to adverse health effects due to occupational exposure. Years worked was not found to correlate with pulmonary function. Based on an analysis of this study, NIOSH concludes that the researchers had no control over the selection of the factories studied and were not able to assess fully the representativeness of the study population. The methodology over which the researchers had control was properly applied, and the presentation of data was thorough and clear. It was possible that there may have been a dose response, but only a reevaluation of these subjects would clarify this. Because the information on years worked was supplied by the factories, the accuracy of the information could not be determined. The facilities studied may not have been typical of knitwear and hosiery factories, so that the results could not be applied to the industry as a whole.
• Subjects:
  Accidents, Occupational Hydrocarbons Occupational Exposure Occupational Health Preceptorship Safety
• Keywords:
  Cotton-dust Epidemiology NIOSH-Author NIOSH-Testimony Occupational-exposure Pulmonary-function Pulmonary-system-disorders; Textiles-industry
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Testimony
• Place as Subject:
  North Carolina ; OSHA Region 4
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  1-5
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:00194007
• Citation:
  NIOSH 1982 Sep:5 pages
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  1982
• NORA Priority Area:
  Asthma and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease ; Disease and Injury ; Pulmonary System Disorders
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:ca39e654d8791eb34456cd0753cdbdf683e8ac6648d4c19b7bd0e9fbf7c47ea1fb9aa879b661f99b9c5e617f87f81bbe271229a903f8983080afa80f85335735
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/180369/cdc_180369_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 264.15 KB ]