Occupational pathology in workers employed at deep and surface mining of apatite ores in the Kola Zapolyarye

Abstract

Ore mining technologies are constantly developed and improved; nonetheless, most miners employed at apatite mines in Zapolyarny regions of the Kola Peninsula run higher risks of occupational diseases (OD). The research goal was to explore peculiarities related to OD occurrence in miners employed at deep and surface apatite mines. We examined data collected within social-hygienic monitoring activities in 2007-2017, the section "Working conditions and occupational morbidity"; the data were collected for the overall Murmansk region population, there were 470 patients with OD and 749 OD cases revealed in the region over the selected time period. We detected that in case of deep mining OD (first of all, in the musculoskeletal system) occurred at a younger age and after a shorter working period due to increased labor hardness (59.6 %). As regards surface mining, labor hardness and overall vibration were the basic etiologic factors there, and OD structure was characterized with considerable fractions of diseases in the musculoskeletal system (32.7 %) and vibration disease (hand-arm vibration syndrome, 31.8 %).

Retrospective assessment of occupational disease trends in Russian Arctic apatite miners

“…Nevertheless, despite all efforts, as before, the apatite miners are included in the group of workers with an increased risk of occupational pathology. On average, 65–70 new cases of occupational diseases are reported in this group of workers annually, which is up to 40–50% of all cases in the region [ 7 , 9 ]. In addition to harmful working conditions, the persistence of high occupational morbidity among miners may be due to the underestimation of developmental risks and insufficient detection of early pathological signs during annual health screening.…”