CDC STACKS serves as an archival repository of CDC-published products including scientific findings, journal articles, guidelines, recommendations, or other public health information authored or co-authored by CDC or funded partners.
As a repository, CDC STACKS retains documents in their original published format to ensure public access to scientific information.
i
Incident chronic obstructive pulmonary disease associated with occupation, industry, and workplace exposures in the Health and Retirement Study
-
1 2021
-
Source: Am J Ind Med. 64(1):26-38
[PDF-122.21 KB]
Details:
-
Alternative Title:Am J Ind Med
-
Personal Author:
-
Description:Background
Chronic health effects from accumulated occupational exposures manifest as the workforce ages. The Health and Retirement Study (HRS), a panel survey of U.S. adults nearing/in retirement, allows assessment of associations among industry and occupation (I/O), workplace exposures, and incident chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
Methods
The study population comprised respondents from the 1992 HRS cohort employed in 1972 or later and not diagnosed with COPD as of initial interview. We examined associations with incident COPD through 2016 and 1) broad and selected detailed I/O, 2) workplace exposures, and 3) exposures within I/O. Given the cohort’s baseline age (50–62), we calculated subhazard ratios (SHRs) for COPD accounting for competing risk of death.
Results
SHRs for COPD were significantly elevated for several industries: mining; blast furnaces, steelworks, rolling and finishing mills; groceries and related products; and automotive repair shops. Occupations with significantly elevated SHRs were maids and housemen; farm workers; vehicle/mobile equipment mechanics and repair workers; material moving equipment operators; and non-construction laborers. Significantly elevated COPD SHRs were observed for specific I/O-exposure pairs: blast furnace/steelworks/rolling/finishing mills and asbestos; automotive repair shops and aerosol paints; farm workers and pesticide exposures; and both material moving equipment operators and non-construction laborers exposed to dust and ash.
Conclusions
Certain jobs and occupational exposures are associated with increased risk for developing COPD in late pre-retirement and during retirement. Given the disability and economic costs of COPD, these findings support focusing exposure prevention and medical monitoring resources on groups of workers at increased risk.
-
Subjects:
-
Source:
-
Pubmed ID:33124723
-
Pubmed Central ID:PMC7736507
-
Document Type:
-
Funding:
-
Volume:64
-
Issue:1
-
Collection(s):
-
Main Document Checksum:
-
Download URL:
-
File Type:
