Mortality in the Baltimore Union Poultry Cohort: Non-Malignant Diseases

Details

• Personal Author:
  Johnson ES ; Ndetan H ; Singh KP ; Yau LC ; Zhou Y
• Description:
  Background: Workers in poultry plants have high exposure to a variety of transmissible agents present in poultry and their products. Subjects in the general population are also exposed. It is not known whether many of these agents cause disease in humans. If they do, we reason this would be readily evident in a highly exposed group such as poultry workers. We report here on mortality from non-malignant diseases in a cohort of poultry workers. Methods: Mortality was compared with that of the US general population, and with that of a comparison group from the same union. Risk was estimated by standardized mortality ratio, proportional mortality ratio, and directly standardized risk ratio. Results: Poultry workers as a group had an overall excess of deaths from diabetes, anterior horn disease, and hypertensive disease, and a deficit of deaths from intracerebral hemorrhage. Deaths from zoonotic bacterial diseases, helminthiasis, myasthenia gravis, schizophrenia, other diseases of the spinal cord, diseases of the esophagus and peritonitis were non-significantly elevated overall by all analyses, and significantly so in particular race/sex subgroups. Conclusions: Poultry workers may have excess occurrence of disease affecting several organs and systems, probably originating from widespread infection with a variety of microorganisms. The results for neurologic diseases could well represent important clues to the etiology of these diseases in humans. The small numbers of deaths involved in some cases limit interpretation. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Air Pollutants, Occupational Bacterial Infections Cardiovascular Diseases Cardiovascular System Communicable Diseases Environmental Monitoring Food Handling Food Industry Mortality Nervous System Nervous System Diseases Occupational Health Safety Viral Diseases

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• Keywords:
  Author Keywords: Transmissible Agents Bacteria Bacterial-disease Bacterial-infections Cardiovascular-disease Disease-incidence Disease-transmission Exposure-assessment Exposure-levels Exposure-methods Fumes Hypertension Infectious-diseases Meat-handlers Mortality-data Mortality-rates Neurological-diseases Neurologic Diseases Poultry-industry Poultry-workers Poultry Slaughtering/Processing Viral-diseases Viral-infections Viruses Worker-health

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• ISSN:
  0340-0131
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Grant
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  Maryland ; OSHA Region 3 ; OSHA Region 6 ; Texas
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Volume:
  83
• Issue:
  5
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20037333
• Citation:
  Int Arch Occup Environ Health 2010 Jun; 83(5):543-552
• Contact Point Address:
  Eric S. Johnson, Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of North Texas Health Science Center, 3500 Camp Bowie Blvd., Fort Worth, TX 76107
• Email:
  ejohnson@hsc.unt.edu
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2010
• Performing Organization:
  University of North Texas
• Peer Reviewed:
  True
• Start Date:
  20050901
• Source Full Name:
  International Archives of Occupational and Environmental Health
• End Date:
  20080430
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:b30819c1d7426a0421c267966a235bfc31c263040f38d1078b99ee12b751aba3493b9033f735c7934ef746b8a21b61720ea26657e0598c8b8419f868453008c2
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/188438/cdc_188438_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 291.72 KB ]