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WEDNESDAY, June 5, 2019 (HealthDay News) — Workplace exposures contribute to the burden of respiratory conditions, according to a statement issued by the American Thoracic Society and European Respiratory Society and published in the June 1 issue of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Paul D. Blanc, M.D., from the University of California in San Francisco, and colleagues conducted a systematic review to examine the occupational contribution to the burden of major nonmalignant respiratory diseases. The occupational population-attributable fraction (PAF) was estimated for respiratory conditions for which there were sufficient population-based studies to allow pooled estimates, while for other conditions, the occupational burden of disease was estimated based on case series, incidence rate ratios, or attributable fractions.<\/p>\n
The researchers found that workplace exposures contribute substantially to the burden of several chronic respiratory diseases, including asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, chronic bronchitis, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, and community-acquired pneumonia in working-age adults (PAFs, 16, 14, 13, 26, and 10 percent, respectively). Workplace exposures also contributed to the burden of hypersensitivity pneumonitis (occupational burden, 19 percent); other granulomatous diseases, including sarcoidosis (occupational burden, 30 percent); pulmonary alveolar proteinosis (occupational burden, 29 percent); and tuberculosis (occupational burden, 2.3 and 1.0 percent in silica-exposed workers and health care workers, respectively).<\/p>\n
“The role of occupational factors in most lung disease is underrecognized,” Blanc said in a statement. “Failure to appreciate the importance of work-related factors in such conditions impedes diagnosis, treatment and, most importantly of all, prevention of further disease.”<\/p>\n