Estimating serum polychlorinated biphenyl levels in highly exposed workers: an empirical model

Details

• Personal Author:
  Lawrence CE ; Reilly AA ; Stelma JM ; Taylor, Philip R.
• Description:
  A regression model was developed to estimate polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) serum concentrations according to job exposure categories. Two facilities manufacturing capacitors using PCBs with Aroclor-1254 (11097691), Aroclor-1242 (53469219), and Aroclor-1016 (12674112) as their primary dielectric fluid from 1946 to 1977 were evaluated in 1979 and 1983. One hundred forty seven employees were studied; complete histories were acquired along with serum Aroclor- 1254 measurements. Calculations at this stage assumed first order kinetics and an Aroclor-1254 half life of 3.32 years was estimated. All jobs were categorized into two exposure groups and four specific duration related subgroups. Classical multiple regression techniques based on least squares were employed with serum high homolog PCB as the dependent variable and exposure category months as the independent variables. The regression models were applied in a study of the birth weight and gestational ages of infants born to female employees. The efficiency of regression based exposure estimates were compared to commonly used epidemiological parameters through investigation of dichotomized, ordinal, and continuous exposure surrogates. Of the alternative exposure categorizations, the ever versus never direct measure was found to be a poor indicator of serum PCB levels. In fact, nearly all measures tried were poor predictors; the best after the fact was total months employed in direct exposure jobs. The authors conclude that, compared to the deductive approaches, the empirical model offers a substantially improved way of estimating and categorizing exposure in epidemiological studies. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Epidemiology Occupational Exposure Occupational Health Polychlorinated Biphenyls Safety
• Keywords:
  Blood-serum Contract-210-81-5102 Electronics-industry Humans Mathematical-models NIOSH-Contract NIOSH-Publication Occupational-exposure Polychlorinated-biphenyls Statistical-analysis
• ISSN:
  0098-4108
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Contract
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  413-422
• Volume:
  34
• Issue:
  4
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:00204211
• Citation:
  J Toxicol Environ Health 1991 Dec; 34(4):413-422
• CAS Registry Number:
  Aroclor 1016 (CAS RN 12674-11-2) ; Aroclor 1242 (CAS RN 53469-21-9) ; PCB-1254 (CAS RN 11097-69-1)
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  1992
• Peer Reviewed:
  True
• Source Full Name:
  Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:5cc195ce44665d38b226df5bdcc40164c560bfb3a6ff573ea70bc513947f08d7918894c6b4dcca17a358ebcb79a52af25daf947d89afe0b21c820d252423686d
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/204644/cdc_204644_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 660.53 KB ]