71 results match your criteria: "Massey University Wellington Campus[Affiliation]"

Agricultural exposures and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

Scand J Work Environ Health

January 2006

Centre for Public Health Research, Massey University Wellington Campus, Wellington, New Zealand.

Farmers have an increased risk of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL), several studies have found increased risks of NHL among producers or sprayers of pesticides. The findings are markedly inconsistent across countries and studies, but overall there is evidence of an increased risk among production workers and professional pesticide sprayers with heavy exposures. However, this increased risk does not appear to be confined to workers exposed to phenoxy herbicides containing 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin, and it may be due to phenoxy herbicide exposure itself rather than to the dioxin contaminants.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Quantitative estimates of work-related death, disease and injury in New Zealand.

Scand J Work Environ Health

August 2005

Centre for Public Health Research, Massey University Wellington Campus, Wellington, New Zealand.

Objectives: New Zealand lacks comprehensive statistics on work-related injury and illness, and the impact of adverse work conditions on health is therefore not known. The objective of this study was to make quantitative estimates of the annual number of deaths from work-related disease and injury in New Zealand, as well as estimate the number of incident cases of work-related disease and injury.

Methods: Wherever possible, specific data for New Zealand were used, but, where adequate national data were lacking, a combination of New Zealand data and extrapolations from other countries was used.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Cancer among meat industry workers.

Scand J Work Environ Health

December 2004

Centre for Public Health Research, Massey University Wellington Campus, Wellington, New Zealand.

Several studies have found increased risks of cancer among workers in the meat industry, particularly lung and hematologic cancers. Relevant publications were obtained through a computerized literature search with the key words "cancer", "lung cancer", "hematologic neoplasms", "meat products", "abattoirs", and "slaughterhouses", and the evidence available from analyses of routine data, proportionate mortality and incidence studies, and cohort and case-control studies was reviewed. These analyses suggest a significant excess lung cancer risk among meat workers.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Mortality in New Zealand workers exposed to phenoxy herbicides and dioxins.

Occup Environ Med

January 2005

Centre for Public Health Research, Research School of Public Health, Massey University Wellington Campus, PO Box 756, Wellington, New Zealand.

Aims: To evaluate mortality in New Zealand phenoxy herbicide producers and sprayers exposed to dioxins.

Methods: Phenoxy herbicide producers (n = 1025) and sprayers (n = 703) were followed up from 1 January 1969 and 1 January 1973 respectively to 31 December 2000. A total of 813 producers and 699 sprayers were classified as exposed to dioxin and phenoxy herbicides.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Epidemiology: populations, methods and theories.

Eur J Epidemiol

November 2004

Centre for Public Health Research, Massey University Wellington Campus, Private Box 756, Wellington, New Zealand.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Infections, medication use, and the prevalence of symptoms of asthma, rhinitis, and eczema in childhood.

J Epidemiol Community Health

October 2004

Centre for Public Health Research, Research School of Public Health, Massey University Wellington Campus, Private Box 756, Wellington, New Zealand.

Background: The "hygiene hypothesis" postulates that infections during infancy may protect against asthma and atopy. There is also some evidence that antibiotic and/or paracetamol use may increase the risk of asthma.

Methods: The study measured the association between infections, and medication use early in life and the risk of asthma at age 6-7 years.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Effect measures in prevalence studies.

Environ Health Perspect

July 2004

Centre for Public Health Research, Massey University Wellington Campus, Wellington, New Zealand.

There is still considerable confusion and debate about the appropriate methods for analyzing prevalence studies, and a number of recent papers have argued that prevalence ratios are the preferred method and that prevalence odds ratios should not be used. These arguments assert that the prevalence ratio is obviously the better measure and the odds ratio is "unintelligible." They have often been accompanied by demonstrations that when a disease is common the prevalence ratio and the prevalence odds ratio may differ substantially.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The globalization of epidemiology: introductory remarks.

Int J Epidemiol

October 2004

Centre for Public Health Research, Massey University Wellington Campus, Private Box 756, Wellington, New Zealand.

We are all living in the era of globalization, and like it or not, it is going to change the way we practice epidemiology, the kinds of questions we ask, and the methods we use to answer them. Increasingly, pubic health problems are being shifted from rich countries to poor countries and from rich to poor populations within Western countries. There is increasing interest and concern about the situation in non-Western populations on the part of Western epidemiologists, with regards to collaborative research, skills transfer, and 'volunteerism' to enable the 'benefits' of Western approaches to epidemiology to be shared by the non-Western world.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: This paper reports a qualitative investigation of people who have considered removing their dental amalgam fillings following a medical diagnosis of mercury poisoning.

Objective: To document themes from patients' collective, subjective experience; and explore links between illness and dental amalgam.

Methods: Seven focus groups involved 35 participants selected by random, criteria sampling from the computerized patient records of one medical practice.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Genetics, race, ethnicity, and health.

BMJ

May 2004

Centre for Public Health Research, Massey University Wellington Campus, Private Box 756, Wellington, New Zealand.

Genetics plays only a small part in ethnic differences in health, and other factors are often more amenable to change

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Aim: To examine regional patterns of asthma hospitalisations in Maori and non-Maori.

Methods: We studied asthma hospitalisations in Maori and non-Maori during 1994-2000. Hospitalisation rates for Maori and non-Maori were calculated for ages 5-34 years in each of the 74 territorial authorities (TAs), of which 15 are urban and 59 predominantly rural.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: The aim of this study was to investigate the associations between body mass index (BMI) in early and mid-adulthood, and BMI change between these ages, and mortality.

Methods: Historical cohort study of 629 men, who had height and weight measured at the Student Health Service of the University of Glasgow in 1948-1949 (median age 22 y) and who reported their weight in a postal questionnaire in 1963-1966 (median age 38 y). The participants were followed up until April 2002 (mean follow-up: 35 y).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Mammographic density, in particular density from digital images, is increasingly used in breast cancer research. We investigated the concordance between density assigned by the same radiologist to a mammogram film and a digital image of the same mammogram. Two density measures were investigated, Wolfe parenchymal patterns and a six category classification (SCC) system of density.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objectives: To study work exposure and respiratory symptoms in New Zealand plywood mill workers.

Methods: Personal inhalable dust (n = 57), bacterial endotoxin (n = 20), abietic acid (n = 20), terpene (n = 20) and formaldehyde (n = 22) measurements were taken and a respiratory health questionnaire was administered to 112 plywood mill workers.

Results: Twenty-six percent of the dust exposures exceeded 1 mg/m(3), however, none of the samples exceeded the legal limit of 5 mg/m(3) [geometric mean (GM) = 0.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Is social capital the key to inequalities in health?

Am J Public Health

January 2003

Centre for Public Health Research, Massey University Wellington Campus, New Zealand.

There has been vigorous debate between the "social capital" and "neomaterialist" interpretations of the epidemiological evidence regarding socioeconomic determinants of health. We argue that levels of income inequality, social capital, and health in a community may all be consequences of more macrolevel social and economic processes that influence health across the life course. We discuss the many reasons for the prominence of social capital theory, and the potential drawbacks to making social capital a major focus of social policy.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: To study respiratory symptoms in pine sawmill workers.

Methods: A respiratory health questionnaire was administered to 772 pine sawmill workers and the association between symptoms and job-title-based exposure was studied.

Results: Asthma in exposed workers (18%, n = 704) was more common than in the general population (12.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Occupational respiratory symptoms in New Zealand hairdressers.

Occup Med (Lond)

November 2000

Centre for Public Health Research, Massey University Wellington Campus, Private Box 756, Wellington, New Zealand.

Background: A study of occupational respiratory symptoms in hairdressers was carried out in 26 salons in New Zealand.

Methods: A questionnaire was administered to 100 hairdressers and 106 office and shop workers, recording respiratory symptoms, demographic data, and smoking habits. Pulmonary function was measured before each shift.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF