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Background The prevalence of osteoporosis and osteopenia is higher among underground coal miners than surface workers. The special underground work environment and unhealthy habits such as smoking, drinking, and a high-salt diet may lead to changes in bone metabolism, increasing the risk of fragility fractures and placing a heavy economic burden on individuals and society. Objective To identify potential factors influencing fragility fractures among coal miners in different working environments and to provide a basis for targeted preventive measures to reduce the occurrence of fragility fractures. Methods Male participants who attended at least one of the physical examinations in Kailuan Group between June 2006 and December 2020 were included in the study. The participants were divided into two groups based on their working environment: surface or underground. A case-control study was conducted, where patients with new fragility fractures served as the case group and participants without fragility fractures served as the control group. The two groups were matched with a case:control ratio of 1:4 by age (±1 year) and the same year of physical examination. The matching process was repeated twice, once for the surface working population and once for the underground working population. The analysis of risk factors was conducted using conditional logistic regression models. Results Among a total of 113138 employees in Kailuan Group, 82631 surface workers and 30507 underground workers were included, respectively. The number of individuals who suffered fragility fractures was 1375, accounting for 1.22% of the total population. The incidence of fragility fractures in underground workers was significantly higher than that in surface workers (1.63%>1.07%, P<0.001). The results of conditional logistic regression model showed that current smoking (OR=1.26, 95%CI: 1.05, 1.51), manual labor (OR=1.37, 95%CI: 1.06, 1.78), diabetes (OR=1.26, 95%CI: 1.04, 1.54), sinus tachycardia (OR=1.81, 95%CI: 1.23, 2.66), history of stroke (OR=1.51, 95%CI: 1.09, 2.09), education at college and above (OR=0.65, 95%CI: 0.45, 0.95), high income level (OR=0.69, 95%CI: 0.54, 0.90), elevated hemoglobin (OR=0.91, 95%CI: 0.85, 0.98), and elevated total cholesterol (OR=0.90, 95%CI: 0.82, 0.99) were associated with fragility fractures in the surface working population of coal mines; current smoking (OR=1.48, 95%CI: 1.17, 1.87), current drinking (OR=1.26, 95%CI: 1.01, 1.56), manual labor (OR=2.64, 95%CI: 1.41, 4.94), history of dust exposure (OR=1.28, 95%CI: 1.03, 1.58), and obesity (OR=0.72, 95%CI: 0.52, 0.96) were associated with fragility fractures in the underground working population of coal mines. Conclusion In preventing fragility fractures, special attention should be paid to the bone health of underground workers engaged in manual labor or having a history of dust exposure. It is important to correct their unhealthy behaviors in a timely manner, such as smoking and drinking, and to appropriately increase body weight to prevent fragility fractures. For surface workers, particular attention should be given to the high-risk group for fragility fractures, such as low family income per capita, manual labor, and having a history of stroke or diabetes; in addition, close monitoring of their resting heart rate, hemoglobin levels, and total cholesterol levels may help prevent fragility fractures.
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Objective: To analyze the epidemiological distribution of new occupational pneumoconiosis (hereinafter referred as pneumoconiosis) in Henan Province from 2006 to 2020. Methods: Clinical data of newly recruited pneumoconiosis cases from 2006 to 2020 in Henan Province were retrospectively analyzed. Results: A total of 9 624 cases of newly diagnosed pneumoconiosis were reported in Henan Province in the past 15 years, of which 98.6% were males. The number of cases had two peaks, one in 2009-2011 and the other in 2014-2017. There were 12 types of pneumoconiosis of all reported cases except for mica pneumoconiosis, in which coal workers' pneumoconiosis and silicosis accounted for 96.0%. The incidence of phase Ⅰ, Ⅱ and Ⅲ pneumoconiosis was 64.7%, 21.0% and 14.3%, respectively. The incidence of phase Ⅱ and Ⅲ silicosis was higher than that of coal miners' pneumoconiosis (56.3% vs 22.7%, P<0.01). Patients with pneumoconiosis were mainly distributed in Zhengzhou City, Sanmenxia City, Luoyang City, Pingdingshan City and Hebi City, accounting for 85.0%. The enterprises involved were mainly mining industry, large- and medium-sized enterprises, state-owned enterprises and collective enterprises. The top five position of patients were coal miners, rock drillers, excavators, coal mixed workers and pure coal miners, total accounting for 72.0%. There were 196 enterprises reported ≥10 cases, accounting for 17.2% of all enterprises and 80.3% of the total of newly diagnosed pneumoconiosis cases. The median (M) of onset age of new cases was 49 years old, and the M of onset of working age was 16 years. The onset age of silicosis was younger (M: 49 vs 48 years old, P<0.05), while the onset of working age was longer (M: 10 vs 20 years, P<0.05), compared with that of coal workers' pneumoconiosis. Conclusion: The incidence of pneumoconiosis in Henan Province were disease clustering distribution, regional distribution, industry of enterprise, enterprise scale, enterprise type, nature and working position distribution of enterprises. And it showed the characteristics of group incidence. The prevention and control treatment of pneumoconiosis should be strengthened in key areas, key enterprises and key diseases and jobs.
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Background The highly prevalent of occupational stress and job burnout of coal miners seriously affect their physical and mental health. Objective To investigate the levels of occupational stress and job burnout in coal mine workers, and to analyze the mediating effect of work-family conflict between these two conditions. Methods A total of 1500 coal miners were included by random cluster sampling method from February to October 2019. The levels of occupational stress, work-family conflict, and job burnout of the study participants were evaluated using the Effort-Reward Imbalance Inventory scale (ERI), the Work-Family Conflict Scale, and the Chinese version of the Burnout Scale, and compared among coal miners with different demographic characteristics. Partial correlation analysis was used to find the correlations between indicators; SPSS AOMS 26.0 software was used to analyze the potential mediating effect among occupational stress, work-family conflict, and job burnout in the coal miners in Xinjiang. Results The study included 1247 male coal miners with a valid questionnaire return rate of 83.13%. The M (P25, P75) score of job burnout was 55.00 (47.00, 62.00). Except for gender and monthly income, the differences of job burnout scores among coal miners grouped with selected demographic characteristics were statistically significant (P<0.05). The M (P25, P75) scores of ERI and work-family conflict of coal miners were 1.01 (0.85, 1.21) and 51.00 (44.00, 57.00) respectively, and the differences of ERI and work-family conflict scores among different job types were statistically significant (P<0.05). ERI values were positively correlated with burnout (rs=0.212), emotional exhaustion (rs=0.188), and depersonalization (rs=0.244) scores (all P<0.01); work-family conflict scores were positively correlated with burnout (rs=0.382), emotional exhaustion (rs=0.360), depersonalization (rs=0.370), and reduced sense of accomplishment (rs=0.105) scores (all P<0.01). The regression results showed a significant positive effect of occupational stress on job burnout and work-family conflict (b=7.117, b=8.347, P<0.001), and a mediating effect of work-family conflict on the association between occupational stress and job burnout, with a mediating effect value of 0.249 (50.92% of the total effect of 0.489, P=0.002). Conclusion Work-family conflict may act as a mediating role between occupational stress and job burnout in coal miners, which suggests an indirect effect on occurrence of job burnout.
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Background Work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs) is one of the main disorders that impair the working ability of workers. Social and psychological factors can lead to WMSDs by affecting physiological mechanisms, changing work posture, or disturbing mood and cognitive ability. Objective To explore current situation of job burnout, depressive symptoms, and WMSDs in coal miners, and to analyze their relationships. Methods This cross-sectional survey adopted cluster random sampling method and selected 1700 on-job coal miners from five coal mining enterprises in Xinjiang. The general information, job burnout, depressive symptoms, and the prevalence of WMSDs in coal miners were investigated by using the Job Burnout Scale, Self-rating Depressive Symptom Scale, and Chinese Musculoskeletal Questionnaire. The prevalence rates of WMSDs, job burnout scores, and depressive symptom scores of coal miners with different demographic characteristics were compared. Spearman correlation analysis was used to identify the correlations among the three variables. A structural equation model was established to the analyze the potential mediating effect of depressive symptoms on the relationship between job burnout and WMSDs. Results A total of 1528 valid questionnaires were collected, with an valid recovery rate of 89.9%, including 1335 males (87.4%) and 193 females (12.6%). The M (P0-P100) of age was 41 (19-59) years, and the M (P0-P100) of length of service was 25 (1-42) years. The prevalence rate of WMSDs in coal miners was 57.7%. The M (P25, P75) score of job burnout was 54.0 (45.0, 61.0), and the M (P25, P75) score of depressive symptoms was 48.8 (43.8, 53.8). There were significant differences in WMSDs prevalence rate, job burnout score, and depressive symptom score among different sex, age, length of service, shift, and education level groups (P<0.05). There was a positive correlation between job burnout and WMSDs and between depressive symptoms and WMSDs (rs=0.172 and 0.098, P < 0.01), and there was a positive correlation between job burnout and depressive symptoms (rs=0.138, P < 0.01). The results of structural equation model suggested that job burnout and depressive symptoms directly affected WMSDs, and the standardized path coefficients (β) were 0.10 and 0.09, respectively; job burnout also directly affected depressive symptoms (β=0.19). The total effect of job burnout on WMSDs was 0.120, the direct effect was 0.102, and the indirect effect mediated by depressive symptoms was 0.018, accounting for 15.0% of the total effect (all Ps<0.05). Conclusion The prevalence rate of WMSDs in coal miners is high, and job burnout and depressive symptoms are associated with WMSDs.
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Coal miners are a high-risk occupational group of work-related musculoskeletal disorders(WMSDs). This disease not only causes a reduction in the quality of life of workers, loss work ability, and decline in work efficiency, but also becomes an important factor leading to increase social medical burden. At present, most of the evaluation of WMSDs of coal miners at home and abroad adopts the international general scale. Chinese scholars have developed a WMSDs questionnaire that meets the occupational characteristics of Chinese population based on the international general scale—the Chinese Musculoskeletal Disorders Questionnaire. The questionnaire has good reliability and validity, and is a reliable and effective tool for evaluating WMSDs. The prevalence of WMSDs in coal miners is relatively high. The occupational factors that affect WMSDs in coal miners are mainly physical load, postural load, mental load, work organization, and work environment. The individual factors are mainly age, working experience, and education level. It′s recommended to prevent and control the occurrence of coal miners′ WMSDs through multi-level intervention measures such as strengthening education, changing the working posture, and improving the working conditions of coal miners, and rationally arranging labor organizations.
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Objective@#To analyze the anxiety and depression status of coal miners and related influencing factors, and to provide justifications for occupational health protection.@*Methods@#From April 2017 to June 2017, a total of 650 coal miners in a mining area in Shanxi, China were enrolled; The coal miners were evaluated for their anxiety and depression status using the Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale (14 items) and the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (17 items) , respectively. The related influencing factors for anxiety and depression of the coal miners were analyzed with nonparametric test, chi-square test, and logistic regression.@*Results@#The incidence rates of anxiety and depression were 51.1% and 60.5%, respectively. As suggested by the scores and detection rates of anxiety and depression, males had significantly higher anxiety and depression scores than females (P<0.05) ; subjects in older-age groups and those working in shifts had significantly higher anxiety scores (P<0.05) ; subjects with higher education degrees and smokers had significantly higher depression scores (P<0.05) ; while subjects with longer length of service, those with poor sleep quality, and those working in the underground mines had both significantly higher anxiety and depression scores (P<0.05) . The detection rate of anxiety was significantly higher in subjects with a drinking habit than in those who did not drink (P<0.05) . The detection rate of depression was significantly higher in subjects with hypertension than in those with normal blood pressure (P<0.05) . A multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that work type and length of service were related to anxiety; gender and length of service were related to depression; length of service was positively correlated with both anxiety and depression.@*Conclusion@#The anxiety and depression in coal miners and related influencing factors should be taken seriously. Gender, age, length of service, working in shifts, education degree, smoking, sleep quality, underground working environment, and hypertension may be risk factors for anxiety and depression in coal miners.
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Objective@#To understand the prevalence of dyslipidemia and risk factors among coal miners under different work conditions.@*Methods@#The survey was conducted from April 2016 to June 2016. 759 mine workers were divided into three groups (group of the front line miner, underground auxiliary and ground) . Questionnaire and physical examination were used to collect related information of workers. Logistic regression model was used to analyze relative factors.@*Results@#The overall prevalence of dyslipidemia was 43.2% in coal miners. The prevalence rate of the front line miner and underground auxiliary miners was 46.6%. Ground workers had the lowest prevalence rate of 36.4%. Multiple Logistic regression analysis showed that higher body mass index (BMI) was risk factors for underground workers (OR=2.18, 95%CI:1.51~3.13) . Smoking (OR=1.99, 95%CI:1.17~3.38) , drinking (OR=1.85, 95%CI:1.11~3.06) , hypertension (OR=1.79, 95%CI:1.00~3.22) and higher waist and hip ratio (OR=1.06, 95%CI:1.04~1.09) were risk factors for underground auxiliary workers. For ground workers, those with higher BMI (OR=2.64, 95%CI:1.68~4.16) were at higher risk of dyslipidemia and female workers had lower risk (OR=0.35, 95%CI:0.18~0.65) than male workers.@*Conclusion@#The dyslipidemia rate of coal mine workers is related to work environment and behavior. Health education may be needed to reduce the dyslipidemia rate of coal mine workers.
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In coal mines, main occupational hazard is coal-mine dust, which can cause health prob-lem including coal workers' pneumoconiosis and lung cancer. Some heat shock proteins (Hsps) have been reported as an acute response to a wide variety of stressful stimuli. Whether Hsps protect against chronic environmental coal-mine dust over years is unknown. It is also interesting to know that whether the expression of Hsp27 and Hsp70 proteins as a marker for exposure is associated risk of lung cancer among coal miners. We investigated the association between levels of Hsp27 and Hsp70 expression in lymphocytes and plasma and levels of coal-mine dust exposure in workplace or risk of lung cancer in 42 cancer-free non-coal miners, 99 cancer-free coal miners and 51 coal miners with lung cancer in Taiyuan city in China. The results showed that plasma Hsp27 levels were increased in coal miners compared to non-coal miners (P<0.01). Except high cumulative coal-mine dust exposure (OR= 13.62, 95%CI=6.05-30.69) and amount of smoking higher than 24 pack-year (OR=2.72, 95%CI=1.37-5.42), the elevated levels of plasma Hsp70 (OR= 13.00, 95% CI=5.14-32.91) and plasma Hsp27 (OR=2.97, 95% CI=1.40-6.32) and decreased expression of Hsp70 in lymphocytes (OR=2.36, 95% CI=1.05-5.31) were associated with increased risk of lung cancer. These findings suggest that plasma Hsp27 may be a potential marker for coal-mine dust exposure. And the expres-sion of Hsp27 and Hsp70 levels in plasma and lymphocytes may be used as biomarkers for lung can-cer induced by occupational coal-mine dust exposure.
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Objective: To build the relationship model of job burnout, insecurity psychology, and insecurity behavior for miners. Methods: The valid random samples included 1229 miners from national and private coal mines, who were investigated with the revised Job-Burnout Inventory for Miners, Insecurity Psychology Inventory, and Insecurity Behavior Inventory. The data was analyzed through SPSS15.0 and AMOS7.0. Results: The three dimensions of job burnout had significant direct effect on insecurity behavior [β =0.008, 0.047, 0.019) .The three dimensions of job burnout had significant direct effect on psychological paralysis (β =0.031, 0.203, 0.374) and helplessness on security (β =0.206, 0.374, 0.472) . Emotional exhaustion and disengagement from work had significant effect on temporary psychology (β =0. 192, 0.411) and antagonistic psychology (β =0.079, 0.596) . Four dimensions of insecurity psychology had significant effect on insecurity behavior (β = 0.092, 0.023, 0.093, 0.097) and it was a mediator in the model. Conclusion: Miners'job burnout have significant direct effects on insecurity behavior, but also have indirect effects through the insecurity psychology mediator.
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Objective To investigate the relationship between mine environment and hypertension in miners. Methods 1736 male miners who worked under the ground and 825 on the ground were recruited in this study. Prevalence of hypertension under the ground and on the ground miners was compared. Results Prevalence of hypertension of miners under the ground was 23.91% and on the ground was 15.52% (χ2 = 23.56,P <0.001 ). Compared to miners on the ground, the relative risk of hypertension under the ground workers was 1.71 (95% CI 1.38 - 2.13 ). Prevalence of hypertension was correlated to the years of ground working (χ2 = 37.00, P < 0.001 ). The binary logistic regression showed significant relationship between mine environment and hypertension under the ground miners ( OR = 1.05,95% CI 1.02 - 1.08 ).Conclusion The underground environment is an important risk factor hypertension to the miners.