Examining Racial Disparity Within Occupation Versus Adjusting for Race Using the National Occupational Mortality Surveillance Database

Details

• Personal Author:
  Alterman, Toni ; Birdsey J ; Petersen, Martin R.
• Description:
  Surveillance of racial disparity may be a valuable tool for detecting hazardous occupational exposures. Reasons for this are twofold: (1) workers of different racial or ethnic groups may be clustered as to task or work area, possibly resulting in one group being more highly exposed to occupational hazards, 1-3 and (2) comparing workers within the same occupation may help control for confounders such as socioeconomic status and tobacco use. Demonstrate the potential utility of occupation-specific black/white mortality odds ratios (MORs) in occupational health surveillance. The National Occupational Mortality Surveillance database was used to analyze lung cancer mortality of 184,736 black and white employees of primary metal industries, adjusting for age and cohort effect. Coke oven workers have increased lung cancer mortality due to occupational exposures.4 Additionally, non-white coke oven workers are more likely than white coke oven workers to occupy positions with the highest exposure levels, resulting in greater lung cancer mortality among non-whites.1 Our analyses agreed with these findings when black vs. white MORs were calculated for oven workers and other blue-collar workers (oven workers MOR = 1.37, 95% CI 1.09-1.73; other blue-collar MOR = 1.01, 95% CI 0.96-1.06). However, when the oven worker vs. other blue-collar worker MOR (adjusted for race) was calculated, no increased risk was detected for coke oven workers (MOR = 1.03, 95% CI 0.94-1.13). Where exposure varies by race, examination of the occupation-specific black vs. white mortality odds ratio may increase the ability to detect potentially hazardous exposures. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Age Factors Demography Lung Lung Diseases Mortality Neoplasms Occupational Exposure Occupational Health Race Factors Respiratory System Respiratory Tract Diseases Safety Smoke Tobacco Products

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• Keywords:
  Age-factors Demographic-characteristics Lung-cancer Mortality-data Mortality-rates Occupational-exposure Occupational-hazards Pulmonary-system-disorders Racial-factors Respiratory-system-disorders Tobacco Tobacco-smoke

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• Publisher:
  American Public Health Association
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Abstract or Summary
• Place as Subject:
  Ohio ; OSHA Region 5
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  DSHEFS - Division of Surveillance, Hazard Evaluations, and Field Studies
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20023994
• Citation:
  APHA 131st Annual Meeting and Exposition, San Francisco, California, November 15-19, 2003. Washington, DC: American Public Health Association, 2003 Nov; :61890
• Contact Point Address:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, 4676 Columbia Parkway, Cincinnati, OH 45226
• Email:
  JBirdsey@cdc.gov
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2004
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Source Full Name:
  APHA 131st Annual Meeting and Exposition, San Francisco, California, November 15-19, 2003
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:d9ebafd2472e55290b17a0cd72756dde2764012d4a15946329e78fb74b518092195e74b0c9a173d9b02b3a38dac0a53dffc3a14113a575c3fe40e2a6525ff5f4
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/196020/cdc_196020_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 158.11 KB ]