Chest
An Epidemiologic Study of Workers Exposed to Western Red Cedar and Other Wood Dusts
Section snippets
Materials and Methods
The populations studied consisted of 74 shake mill employees exposed to WRC, 58 planer mill workers exposed to a mixture of woods, mainly douglas fir, West Coast hemlock and red alder (DFHA), and 22 clerical, technical and engineering employees not exposed to wood dusts. Approximately 77% of the total work force participated in the investigation. The unexposed or control group consisted of office workers, engineering personnel and technical staff.
Medical evaluation consisted of completion of a
Results
The 124 samples collected for WRC for three days consisted of 85 total and 39 respirable dust eight-hour time-weighted average (TWA) measurements. The respirable dust concentrations ranged between 0.01 and 1.21 mg/m3, with a mean ±. SD value being 0.20 ± 0.23 mg/m3; a median was 0.14 mg/m3. The concentration of the 85 TWA total dust samples ranged between 0.06 and 31.90 mg/m3; mean ± SD value was 4.72 ± 7.45 mg/m3; median concentration was 1.59 mg/m3. Chippers, sawyers, packers and splitters
Discussion
In the present investigation, a high prevalence of occupational asthma was observed among workers exposed to WRC wood dust. A dose-related relationship between total WRC dust level and prevalence of asthma was noted with employees in jobs with the greatest dust exposure, ie sawyers, packers, chippers and splitters showing the highest prevalence of disease. Cigarette smokers demonstrated the greatest magnitudes of change in pulmonary function tests. Chan-Yeung et al5 reported more respiratory
Discussion
Dr. Souhrada: Could the function changes reflect the hard work and the small change in FEV1 be related to reduced effort at the end of the day.
Dr. Brooks: The change in function does not seem to be related to heavy labor.
Dr. DoPico: Are peak levels more important than the time average, and were the time-average test levels adjusted for smoking habit, occupation, neighborhoods?
Dr. Brooks: Peak levels might be important, as they are in other types of occupational exposures such as isocyanates,
Acknowledgments
Robert Miday, M.D., James Mayr, M.D., David Anstadt, M.D., Peggy Schlessinger, Arch Carson, Melvin O. Barber, Marcella Majors, Linda Shea, Marcia Croasmun—University of Cincinnati College of Medicine.
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This study was supported in part by funds from: The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, and Center Grant ES 00159 from the Center for the Study of Human Environment.