Health risk factors and occupation among Iowa workers.

BACKGROUND: Health behaviors represent major risks for premature morbidity and mortality. This study aimed to establish whether health risks varied substantially across occupational groups. METHODS: We focused on the 2223 Iowa Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) subjects who reported, in 1999, that they were currently working. RESULTS: Even after controlling for age and gender, we found significant associations between occupation and health risk factors. We found these associations among the different categories of health risk factors, including insurance/access, health conditions, preventive behaviors, and screening behaviors. CONCLUSIONS: The considerable differences in the prevalence of risk factors for chronic disease and injury across occupational groups in Iowa underscore the need for nationwide ongoing collection of occupational status in the BRFSS. These national data on the distribution of risk factors across occupations will support development of more targeted prevention interventions.

Nested case-control analysis of high pesticide exposure events from the Agricultural Health Study.

BACKGROUND: A nested case-control analysis of high pesticide exposure events (HPEEs) was conducted using the Iowa farmers enrolled in the Agricultural Health Study (AHS). METHODS: In the 12 months of the study, 36 of the 5,970 farmer applicators randomly chosen from the AHS cohort (six per 1,000 farmer applicators per year) met our definition of an HPEE, by reporting "an incident with fertilizers, weed killers, or other pesticides that caused an unusually high personal exposure" resulting in physical symptoms or a visit to a health care provider or hospital. Eligibility criteria were met by 25 HPEE cases and 603 randomly selected controls. RESULTS: Significant risk factors for an HPEE included: poor financial condition of the farm which limited the purchase of rollover protective structures OR = 4.6 (1.5-16.6), and having a high score on a risk acceptance scale OR = 3.8 (1.4-11.2). Other non-significant factors were also identified. CONCLUSIONS: The limited statistical power of this study necessitates replication of these analyses with a larger sample. Nonetheless, the observed elevated odds ratios of an HPEE provide hypotheses for future studies that may lead to preventive action.

Pulmonary function in beryllium workers: assessment of exposure.

The inhalation of beryllium causes a serious lung disease characterised by pronounced radiographic and functional impairments and occurs in workers engaged in the extraction and manufacture of the metal. This paper describes the beryllium exposure levels and refining processes in a large beryllium factory operating since the 1930s. Lifetime beryllium exposure histories were estimated for the 309 workers present at a health survey conducted in 1977. Beryllium exposure levels in the plant were high for many years, with some estimated exposure levels in excess of 100 micrograms/m3. As late as 1975, there were exposures to beryllium above 10 micrograms/m3 in some jobs. After about 1977, the plant was in compliance with the permissible exposure limit of 2.0 micrograms/m3. The median cumulative exposure in this cohort was 65 micrograms/m3-years and the median duration of exposure was 17 years. From these data a series of exposure parameters, functions of the exposure histories that characterise biologically important dimensions of exposure were calculated for each worker.