Incidence of Asthma Among Finnish Construction Workers

Abstract

We wanted to explore the risk of asthma among male workers of the construction industry. All Finnish male construction industry workers and all those employed in administrative work were followed for asthma incidence through a register linkage in 1986 through 1998. Age-adjusted relative risks (RR) were estimated for 24 construction occupations. The risk was increased in nearly all construction occupations studied, but it was highest among welders and flame cutters (RR 2.34), asphalt roofing workers (RR 2.04), plumbers (RR 1.90), and brick layers and tile setters (RR 1.83). Only 45 (2%) of the cases of asthma among construction workers had been recognized as occupational asthma. Construction industry workers have an increased risk of adult-onset persistent asthma and cases of occupational asthma caused by well-established causative agents have only a minor contribution to this overall asthma excess.

Respiratory symptoms and diseases among construction painters

“…To avoid underestimation of true prevalence (Celli et al 2003), we used a symptom-based definition rather than a separate question on doctor-diagnosed chronic bronchitis, as in two population-based studies (Hedman et al 1999;Lundback et al 1991), where the prevalence was lower than among our carpenters. The risk for respiratory symptoms and chronic bronchitis among painters could be higher than our results indicate, because the use of a control group with exposure to dust and other impurities in the ambient air (Flodin and Jonsson 2004) may have attenuated the effects (Arif et al 2002;Bergdahl et al 2004;Hnizdo et al 2002;Karjalainen et al 2002).…”

“…Workers in the construction industry are at risk from, e.g., adult-onset asthma (Karjalainen et al 2002), workrelated asthma (Arif et al 2002) and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) (Bergdahl et al2004;Hnizdo et al 2002). Exposure substances include construction dust, wood dust, various paints and solvent vapours and dust from concrete and masonry (Arif et al 2002).…”

“…Construction painters and carpenters, as occupational groups, have previously only been included in some register studies (Karjalainen et al 2002) Material and methods…”

Work tasks, chemical exposure and respiratory health in construction painting

“…Carpenters may be exposed to many substances that increase their risk of lung diseases [Lipscomb and Dement, 1998;Verma et al, 2003]. In a registry-based study a relative risk of adult-onset asthma of 1.8 for painters and 1.5 for carpenters has been reported, compared with administrative workers [Karjalainen et al, 2002]. Therefore, the true risk of painters may be higher than the present results indicate if compared to unexposed reference group.…”

Non-sensitising air pollution at workplaces and adult-onset asthma in the beginning of this millennium

“…For example in some Finnish studies an increased risk for asthma was observed in non-sensitising branches such as mining and quarrying (Karjalainen et al 2001), also for construction workers, welders, plumbers and asphalt roofing workers (Karjalainen et al 2002b), wood-processing industry workers (Heikkila et al 2008) and industrial cleaners (Karjalainen et al 2002a). …”