Retrospective Assessment of Military Occupations & Neurodegenerative Diseases

Details

• Personal Author:
  McGuire V ; Nelson L ; Tanner C ; Van Den Eeden S
• Description:
  Recent findings from epidemiologic studies suggest that military service may a risk factor for the development of a later-life neurodegenerative disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). The primary objective of this project was to determine whether military service is associated with the risk of developing ALS or another late-life neurodegenerative diseases, Parkinson's disease (PD). We examined the association between military service and the risk of developing PD and ALS using data from four recently completed community-based case-control studies conducted in Northern California and Western Washington State. Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Findings. Prior military service was very common among men with ALS in our studies, occurring among 56% of male controls in both studies, however, we observed no association of military service with ALS, either in the combined studies analysis or for either study separately. No dose-response relation with increasing years of military service was observed, and men who served only during wartime were not at an increased risk of ALS, nor were men who served during both wartime and peacetime. It is notable that more rigorous studies such as ours that are population-based efforts to identify incident cases of ALS do not find such an association, and less rigorous studies that have relied on death certificate ascertainment of ALS are the only studies ant have identified a positive association between military service and ALS. Parkinson's Disease Findings. We observed significant associations between several aspects of military service and the late life risk of developing PD, including service in the military at times of war, and among certain classes of military occupation. When compared to the men who had never served in the military and to men who served but not at times of war, men who were veterans of war had an 80% increased risk of PD. Deployment during World War II was associated with a doubling of PD risk, and deployment during Viet Nam War was associated with a 2.3-fold increased risk of PD. The only significant association observed for specific military occupation was for the class of workers engaged in electrical repair (adjusted OR 3.9, 95% CI 1.4-10.8; p=0.008). Our findings raise concerns that physical or chemical exposures during wartime military service could affect the risk of developing Parkinson's disease. As ours is the first study to investigate whether military service leads to an increased risk of Parkinson's disease, additional studies are needed to replicate these findings and to delve further into the possible reasons for the associations we observed. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Chemistry Demography Epidemiology Men Nervous System Nervous System Diseases Occupational Health Race Factors Risk Assessment Risk Factors Safety Women

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• Keywords:
  Chemical-properties Chemical-reactions Demographic-characteristics Diseases Exposure-levels Humans Military-personnel Neurological-diseases Neurological-reactions Neurological-system Racial-factors Risk-factors Sociological-factors Statistical-analysis

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• Series:
  Grant Final Reports
• Publisher:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Grant
• Genre:
  Final Grant Report
• Place as Subject:
  California ; OSHA Region 9
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  OEP - Office of Extramural Programs
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  1-13
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20046361
• Citation:
  Atlanta, GA: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, R21-OH-009914, 2014 Nov; :1-13
• Contact Point Address:
  Lorene Nelson, PhD, MS, Division of Epidemiology, Department of Health Research and Policy HRP Redwood Building, Room T223 Stanford University School of Medicine Stanford, CA 94305-5405
• Email:
  lnelson@stanford.edu
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2015
• Performing Organization:
  Stanford University
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Start Date:
  20100901
• Source Full Name:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• End Date:
  20140831
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:26437a1531c4f8c53f9d38514b39956556fa9f11bced0981d62090009f14229e4086ab12a419205e7f2915e3fc33ec301a78e95e2b347e71274e3074b9ed68f6
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/218599/cdc_218599_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 190.32 KB ]