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Relationship of asthma to irritant gas exposures in pulp and paper mills.
- Source :
-
Respiratory medicine [Respir Med] 2003 May; Vol. 97 (5), pp. 541-8. - Publication Year :
- 2003
-
Abstract
- The potential of chronic or acute irritant gas exposures to cause asthma or a variant condition, reactive airways dysfunction syndrome (RADS) was investigated by observing asthma incidence in a large working population, using person-years at risk (P-YR) to compute relative rates (RR). Health data came from employee examinations at 62 pulp and paper plants. The 39122 workers who denied asthma beginning before the observation period included: 19326 denying irritant exposures, with no gassing exposures; 19349 with self-reported irritant exposures, and no gassing; and 447 with documented gassings. Asthma was defined as self-reported asthma beginning after the start of observation. P-YR accrued from September 29, 1986, for the nonexposed and exposed workers, and from date of first gassing for gassed workers, and ended with disease onset in any who developed asthma. RR of asthma with 95% confidence intervals (CI95) were calculated for the exposed and gassed groups, relative to the nonexposed. Exposed (nongassed) workers had an elevated asthma rate, RR=1.48, CI95=1.17-1.86, after adjustment for effects of gender and number of examinations. The rate in gassed workers was not significantly elevated: RR=1.95, CI95=0.75-5.08. Of the five asthma cases occurring after gassings, none conformed to diagnostic criteria for RADS. Chronic exposures were associated with increased rate of asthma onset, which must be interpreted with caution because self-reported data defined both exposure category and disease. Documented gassings were not associated with significantly increased rate, and none of 447 gassed persons developed RADS.
- Subjects :
- Adult
Chlorine adverse effects
Female
Humans
Logistic Models
Male
Middle Aged
Occupational Exposure adverse effects
Paper
Population Surveillance
Risk Factors
Air Pollutants, Occupational adverse effects
Asthma chemically induced
Gases adverse effects
Irritants adverse effects
Occupational Diseases chemically induced
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 0954-6111
- Volume :
- 97
- Issue :
- 5
- Database :
- MEDLINE
- Journal :
- Respiratory medicine
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 12735673
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1053/rmed.2002.1475