An individual's likelihood of developing non-communicable diseases is often influenced by the types, intensities and duration of exposures at work. Job exposure matrices provide exposure estimates associated with different occupations. However, due to their time-consuming expert curation process, job exposure matrices currently cover only a subset of possible workplace exposures and may not be regularly updated.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: The objective of our study was to examine whether occupational exposure to benzene is associated with lung cancer among males in the Norwegian Offshore Petroleum Workers cohort.
Methods: Among 25 347 male offshore workers employed during 1965-1998, we conducted a case-cohort study with 399 lung cancer cases diagnosed between 1999 and 2021, and 2035 non-cases sampled randomly by 5-year birth cohorts. Individual work histories were coupled to study-specific job-exposure matrices for benzene and other known lung carcinogens.
Background: We aimed to assess whether exposure to risk factors in early life from conception to puberty continue to contribute to lung function decline later in life by using a pooled cohort comprising approx. 11,000 adults followed for more than 20 years and with up to three lung function measurements.
Methods: Participants (20-68 years) in the ECRHS and NFBC1966 cohort studies followed in the periods 1991-2013 and 1997-2013, respectively, were included.
Workers on offshore petroleum installations might be exposed to benzene, a carcinogenic agent. Recently, a full-shift benzene exposure model was developed based on personal measurements. This study aimed to validate this exposure model by using datasets not included in the model.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Workers in the salmon processing industry have an increased risk of developing respiratory diseases and other hypersensitivity responses due to occupational exposure to bioaerosols containing fish proteins and microorganisms, and related allergens. Little is known about effective measures to reduce bioaerosol exposure and about the extent of skin complaints among workers. In addition, while identification of risk factors is a core activity in disease prevention strategies, there is increasing interest in health-promoting factors, which is an understudied area in the salmon processing industry.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Occupational exposures constitute the second leading cause of urinary bladder cancer after tobacco smoking. Increased risks have been found in the petroleum industry, but high-quality exposure data are needed to explain these observations.
Methods: Using a prospective case-cohort design, we analysed 189 bladder cancer cases (1999-2017) and 2065 randomly drawn non-cases from the Norwegian Offshore Petroleum Workers cohort.
Objectives: Work on offshore petroleum installations may cause exposure to benzene. Benzene is a carcinogenic agent, and exposure among workers should be as low as reasonably practicable. We aimed to assess short-term (less than 60 min) benzene exposure from the most frequent work tasks on offshore installations on the Norwegian continental shelf and identify determinants of exposure.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The RAND-36 and RAND-12 (equivalent to versions 1 of the SF-36 Health Survey and SF-12 Health Survey, respectively) are widely used measures of health-related quality of life. However, there are diverging views regarding how to create the physical health and mental health composite scores of these questionnaires. We present a simple approach using an unweighted linear combination of subscale scores for constructing composite scores for physical and mental health that assumes these scores should be free to correlate.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: Workers on offshore petroleum installations are at risk of being exposed to benzene which is carcinogenic to humans. The present study aimed to assess the time trend of full-shift benzene exposure from 2002 to 2018 in order to characterize benzene exposure among laboratory technicians, mechanics, process operators, and industrial cleaners, and to examine the possible determinants of benzene exposure.
Methods: A total of 924 measurements of benzene exposure from the Norwegian petroleum offshore industry were included.
In a recent study we found that fathers' but not mothers' onset of overweight in puberty was associated with asthma in adult offspring. The potential impact on offspring's adult lung function, a key marker of general and respiratory health, has not been studied. We investigated the potential causal effects of parents' overweight on adult offspring's lung function within the paternal and maternal lines.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBMJ Open
January 2022
Objectives: This study examined the association between night shift work and risk of breast cancer, overall and by hormone receptor subtype, among females in the Norwegian Offshore Petroleum Workers (NOPW) cohort. We also examined the association of coexposure (chlorinated degreasers and benzene) and breast cancer risk, and possible interaction with work schedule.
Design: Prospectively recruited case-cohort study within the NOPW cohort.
Emerging research suggests environmental exposures before conception may adversely affect allergies and lung diseases in future generations. Most studies are limited as they have focused on single exposures, not considering that these diseases have a multifactorial origin in which environmental and lifestyle factors are likely to interact. Traditional exposure assessment methods fail to capture the interactions among environmental exposures and their impact on fundamental biological processes, as well as individual and temporal factors.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Overweight status and asthma have increased during the last decades. Being overweight is a known risk factor for asthma, but it is not known whether it might also increase asthma risk in the next generation.
Objective: We aimed to examine whether parents being overweight in childhood, adolescence, or adulthood is associated with asthma in their offspring.
J Allergy Clin Immunol Pract
October 2020
Background: Although sensitizer-induced occupational asthma (OA) accounts for an appreciable fraction of adult asthma, the severity of OA has received little attention.
Objective: The aim of this study was to characterize the burden and determinants of severe OA in a large multicenter cohort of subjects with OA.
Methods: This retrospective study included 997 subjects with OA ascertained by a positive specific inhalation challenge completed in 20 tertiary centers in 11 European countries during the period 2006 to 2015.
Benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, xylenes, naphthalene and n-hexane evaporating from a thin oil film was measured for 30 min in a small-scale test system at 2 and 13 °C and the impact of physicochemical properties on airborne benzene with time after bulk oil release was studied. Linear mixed-effects models for airborne benzene in three time periods; first 5, first 15 and last 15 min of sampling, indicated that benzene content in fresh oil, oil group (condensate/light crude oil) and pour point were significant determinants explaining 63-73% of the total variance in the outcome variables. Oils with a high pour point evaporated considerably slower than oils with a low pour point.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAltered gene expression in pathways relevant to leukaemogenesis, as well as reduced levels of circulating lymphocytes, have been reported in workers that were exposed to benzene concentrations below 1 ppm. In this study, we analysed whole blood global gene expression patterns in a worker cohort with altered levels of T cells and immunoglobulins IgM and IgA at three time points; pre-shift, post-shift (after three days), and post-recovery (12 hours later). Eight benzene exposed tank workers performing maintenance work in crude oil cargo tanks with a mean benzene exposure of 0.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: In the prospective population-based Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study (MoBa), comprising 113 754 offspring, we investigated the association between parental exposure to "gasoline or exhaust", as a proxy for benzene exposure, and childhood leukaemia.
Methods: Around gestational week 17, mothers and fathers responded to a questionnaire on exposure to various agents during the last 6 months and 6 months pre-conception, respectively. Benzene exposure was assessed through self-reported exposure to "gasoline or exhaust".
Objectives: The main aim of this study was to assess the biological uptake of benzene and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) for subjects exposed to fresh crude oil released at sea.
Methods: The study included 22 subjects participating in an 'oil-on-water' field trial in the North Sea. Over 2 consecutive days, there were six releases with two different types of fresh crude oils.
Background: We prospectively examined skin cancer risk according to occupational exposure to aromatic hydrocarbons with adjustment for ultraviolet radiation exposure, in a cohort of 24 917 male offshore petroleum workers.
Methods: Hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals were estimated with Cox regression adapted to a stratified case-cohort design.
Results: During 13.
Objectives: Characterize personal exposure to airborne hydrocarbons, particularly carcinogenic benzene, during spill of two different fresh crude oils at sea.
Methods: The study included 22 participants taking part in an «oil on water» field trial in the North Sea. Two types of fresh crude oils (light and heavy) were released six times over two consecutive days followed by different oil spill response methods.
We aimed to characterize bakers' personal exposure to airborne flour dust with respect to the health-related aerosol fractions inhalable, extrathoracic, and thoracic dust, and to examine possible production-related determinants of dust exposure. Sixty-eight bakers from 7 bakeries in Bergen, Norway (2009-2012) participated in the exposure assessment, comprising full-shift personal samples of inhalable dust (n = 107) and thoracic dust (n = 61). The relation between possible determinants and exposure was estimated using mixed effects models, while associations between the various aerosol fractions across task groups and type of bakeries were described by Pearson's correlation coefficients.
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