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Occupational Medicine Advance Access originally published online on June 9, 2006
Occupational Medicine 2006 56(6):380-385; doi:10.1093/occmed/kql035
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© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society of Occupational Medicine. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Persistence of respiratory symptoms in ex-underground iron ore miners

Ulf Hedlund1,2, B. Järvholm1 and B. Lundbäck2,3

1 Occupational Medicine, Department of Public Health and Clinical Medicine, Umeå University, SE-901 85 Umeå, Sweden
2 The Obstructive Lung Disease in Northern Sweden Studies, Department of Medicine, Sunderby Central Hospital of Norrbotten, Luleå, Sweden
3 Lung and Allergy Research, National Institute of Environmental Medicine, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden

Aims To assess the persistence of respiratory symptoms in ex-miners after cessation of mining exposure.

Methods Population-based cross-sectional study using a postal questionnaire comparing prevalence of symptoms between ex-miners who had stopped mining at least 1 year before the study and referents not occupationally exposed to irritants or dust. Age, smoking and a family history of asthma were considered as possible confounders in the analysis.

Results A total of 206 ex-miners and 4560 referents participated. Ex-miners had on average been working as miners for 13 years and had stopped mining 16 years before the study. Chronic productive cough and physician-diagnosed chronic bronchitis were significantly more common among ex-miners (P < 0.05 and <0.01, respectively). Furthermore, there was a trend that other respiratory symptoms were more common in ex-miners.

Conclusion Ex-miners had an increased risk of chronic productive cough and physician-diagnosed chronic bronchitis many years after they had stopped working as a miner.

Keywords      Asthma; chronic bronchitis; epidemiology; ex-miners; respiratory symptoms; smoking cessation

Correspondence to: Ulf Hedlund, Occupational Medicine, Department of Public Health and Clinical Medicine, Umeå University, SE-901 85 Umeå, Sweden. Tel: +46 (0)90 785 2242; fax: +46 (0)90 785 2456; e-mail: ulf.hedlund{at}envmed.umu.se


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