Mortality in the Baltimore union poultry cohort: non-malignant diseases

• Published in: International archives of occupational and environmental health Vol. 83; no. 5; pp. 543 - 552
• Main Authors: Johnson, Eric S., Yau, Lillian C., Zhou, Yi, Singh, Karan P., Ndetan, Harrison
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer-Verlag 01.06.2010; Springer; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Agricultural Workers' Diseases - classification; Agricultural Workers' Diseases - epidemiology; Animal Husbandry - statistics & numerical data; Animals; Bacterial diseases; Baltimore; Biological and medical sciences; Cause of Death; Cohort Studies; Disease; Earth and Environmental Science; Environment; Environmental Health; Female; Food-Processing Industry - statistics & numerical data; Human exposure; Humans; Labor Unions - statistics & numerical data; Male; Meat processing; Medical sciences; Mental disorders; Microorganisms; Miscellaneous; Mortality; Occupational exposure; Occupational Exposure - adverse effects; Occupational health; Occupational medicine; Occupational Medicine/Industrial Medicine; Original Article; Poultry; Public health. Hygiene-occupational medicine; Rehabilitation; Risk Assessment; United States; North America; Maryland; America; Baltimore; United States > US; Baltimore Maryland; USA, Maryland, Baltimore; Neurologic diseases; Viruses; Bacteria; Transmissible agents; Fumes; Poultry slaughtering/processing; Human; Nervous system diseases; Farming animal; Disease; Poultry; Mortality; Occupational exposure; Epidemiology; Cohort study; Farmer; Occupational medicine
• ISSN: 0340-0131; 1432-1246
• DOI: 10.1007/s00420-009-0478-6

Background Workers in poultry plants have high exposure to a variety of transmissible agents present in poultry and their products. Subjects in the general population are also exposed. It is not known whether many of these agents cause disease in humans. If they do, we reason this would be readily evident in a highly exposed group such as poultry workers. We report here on mortality from non-malignant diseases in a cohort of poultry workers. Methods Mortality was compared with that of the US general population, and with that of a comparison group from the same union. Risk was estimated by standardized mortality ratio, proportional mortality ratio, and directly standardized risk ratio. Results Poultry workers as a group had an overall excess of deaths from diabetes, anterior horn disease, and hypertensive disease, and a deficit of deaths from intracerebral hemorrhage. Deaths from zoonotic bacterial diseases, helminthiasis, myasthenia gravis, schizophrenia, other diseases of the spinal cord, diseases of the esophagus and peritonitis were non-significantly elevated overall by all analyses, and significantly so in particular race/sex subgroups. Conclusions Poultry workers may have excess occurrence of disease affecting several organs and systems, probably originating from widespread infection with a variety of microorganisms. The results for neurologic diseases could well represent important clues to the etiology of these diseases in humans. The small numbers of deaths involved in some cases limit interpretation.