Elaboration of a quantitative job‐exposure matrix for historical exposure to airborne exposures in the Polish rubber industry

Abstract

This JEM provides an overview of historical exposure levels in a large Polish rubber factory and will enable estimation of lifetime exposure for individual workers in a Polish rubber workers cohort and further investigation of the associations between specific exposures and cancer risk.

Cancer mortality and occupational exposure to aromatic amines and inhalable aerosols in rubber tire manufacturing in Poland

“…However, the usefulness of this method depends to a large extent on the availability of exposure measurement data. In generating the JEM for these analyses [33] enough data was available to estimate average exposure for the 51-58% of the person-years of employment. Nevertheless, assumptions had to be made for the time period outside the years covered by measurements.…”

“…The factory has produced tires for cars, trucks, lorries, trolleys, tractors, agricultural vehicles, motor-cycles, bicycles, as well as inner tubes and protectors. A more specific description of the factory and its history can be found in published literature [30,33].…”

“…Pearson correlations between cumulative exposure estimates for the three airborne agents were calculated and showed a high correlation between cumulative inhalable aerosol and rubber fume exposure (r p = 0.86). Consequently, because more detailed measurement data were available for inhalable aerosols than for rubber fumes when the JEM was constructed [33], cumulative exposure to rubber fumes was not analysed in these analyses. Pearson correlation between cumulative inhalable aerosol exposure and aromatic amine exposure was moderate (r p = 0.74).…”

“…Development of the Job-exposure matrix (JEM) for occupational exposure to aromatic amines, inhalable aerosols and rubber fumes, was based on data included in the EXASRUB database and have been described in detail previously [33]. Briefly, the JEM provides estimates of geometric mean (GM) concentrations for all three airborne chemicals in each department in the factory for each year between 1981 and 1996.…”

“…The EXASRUB data relevant to the Polish cohort were extracted from the database and used to derive a population-specific job-exposure matrix (JEM) for exposure to inhalable aerosols, aromatic amines, and rubber fumes [33]. The present study aims at assessing cancer risks in the updated Polish cohort for which the follow-up has now been extended by an additional 7 years (up till 2002) as compared to the initial observation.…”