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Occupational Medicine Advance Access published online on March 17, 2009
Occupational Medicine, doi:10.1093/occmed/kqp030
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© 2009 The Author(s).
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Mortality in employees at a New Zealand agrochemical manufacturing site

David I. McBride1, Carol J. Burns2, G. Peter Herbison1, Noel F. Humphry3, Kenneth Bodner2 and James J. Collins2

1 Department of Preventive and Social Medicine, University of Otago, PO Box 913, Dunedin, New Zealand
2 Department of Epidemiology, The Dow Chemical Company, Midland, MI 48674, USA
3 Dow Chemical (Australia) Ltd, Altona, Victoria 3018, Australia

Background Previous studies at the Dow AgroSciences (Formerly Ivon Watkins-Dow) plant in New Plymouth, New Zealand, had raised concerns about the cancer risk in a subset of workers at the site with potential exposure to 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin. As the plant had been involved in the synthesis and formulation of a wide range of agrochemicals and their feedstocks, we examined the mortality risk for all workers at the site.

Aim To quantify the mortality hazards arising from employment at the Dow AgroSciences agrochemical production site in New Plymouth, New Zealand.

Methods Workers employed between 1 January 1969 and 1 October 2003 were followed up to the end of 2004. Standardized mortality ratios (SMRs) were calculated using national mortality rates by employment duration, sex, period of hire and latency.

Results A total of 1754 employees were followed during the study period and 247 deaths were observed. The all causes and all cancers SMRs were 0.97 (95% CI 0.85–1.10) and 1.01 (95% CI 0.80–1.27), respectively. Mortality due to all causes was higher for short-term workers (SMR 1.23, 95% CI 0.91–1.62) than long-term workers (SMR 0.92, 95% CI 0.80–1.06) and women had lower death rates than men. Analyses by latency and period of hire did not show any patterns consistent with an adverse impact of occupational exposures.

Conclusion The mortality experience of workers at the site was similar to the rest of New Zealand.

Keywords      Chemical industry; cohort studies; dioxins; mortality; occupational exposure; risk assessment

Correspondence to: David I. McBride, Department of Preventive and Social Medicine, University of Otago, PO Box 913, Dunedin, New Zealand. Tel: +64 3 479 7202; fax: +64 3 479 7298; e-mail: david.mcbride{at}otago.ac.nz.


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