Study on the correlation between ceramic and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in Foshan City / 中华劳动卫生职业病杂志

Objective: To study the correlation between ceramic and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and explore its related risk factors. Methods: In January 2021, five representative ceramic enterprises were selected from Chancheng District, Nanhai District, Gaoming District and Sanshui District of Foshan City. The ceramic workers who came to Chancheng Hospital of Foshan First People's Hospital for physical examination from January to October 2021 were selected as the research objects, and 525 people were included. Conduct questionnaire survey and pulmonary function test. Logistic regresion was performed to analyze the influencing facters of COPD among ceramic workers. Results: The subjects were (38.51±1.25) years old, 328 males and 197 females, and the detection rate of COPD was 9.52% (50/525). The incidence of respiratory symptoms such as dyspnea, chronic cough, wheezing and chest tightness, the detection rates of abnormal lung age, abnormal lung function and COPD in males were higher than those in females (P<0.05). The logistic regression analysis showed that male, age, working years, smoking status and family history of COPD were the risk factors for COPD among ceramic workers (P<0.05) . Conclusion: The ceramic workers are the high risk population of COPD. We should do a good job in health education, and do a regular physical examination to find the changes of lung function in time, and prevent the occurrence of COPD as soon as possible.

Respiratory Health Problems Among the Ceramic Workers in Dhaka,.

Ceramic factory workers are potentially at risk to develop occupational respiratory diseases due to chronic inhalation of dust particles generated in the ceramic factory. A cross-sectional descriptive study was carried out to assess the respiratory and other health problems among the workers of Mirpur Ceramic Works Limited, Dhaka, Bangladesh during the period of April to June, 2011. Among 200 participants, 132 (66%) were males and 68 (34%) were females. Less than one-third of the workers were habituated to use personal protective equipments (PPE), while more than two-third were not habituated. Nearly half (45.5%) of the workers were suffering from at least one respiratory problem and of them 86.8% (P = 0.001) had problems after joining the factory. Of the respiratory sufferers 27% had chronic bronchitis, 20% bronchial asthma, 1% pulmonary tuberculosis, and 0.5% had silicosis. A significant numbers (60.5%) of workers were suffering from other health problems along with or without respiratory problems, in terms of musculoskeletal pain, back pain, headache, dermatitis, anaemia and fever. The prevalence of respiratory problems was significantly higher among non-users of PPE than PPE users (P = 0.006), and it was found to be higher with the increased of job duration. The study showed the notable higher prevalence of respiratory problems among the workers exposed to ceramic dust, although the other potential environmental confounding factors could not be ruled out in the analysis. Obligatory use of PPE by all workers and health education to increase awareness among the workers might have role to reduce the prevalence.

Cohort Mortality Study in Three Ceramic Factories in Jingdezhen in China / 华中科技大学学报（医学）（英德文版）

To investigate the health impacts of crystalline silica mixed dust and other potential occupational hazards on workers in ceramic factories, a cohort study of 4851 workers registered in the employment records in 3 ceramic factories in Jingdezhen city of China between 1972 and 1974 was identified2 The cohort mortality was traced throughout 2003 with an accumulation of 128970.2 person-years, revealed 1542 deaths. Standardized mortality ratios (SMRs) were calculated for the main causes of death by using Chinese national mortality rates as reference. The mortality from all causesin three ceramic factories was 12.0‰ and the cumulative mortality was 31.8%. Malignant neoplasm,cardiovascular diseases, respiratory diseases, infectious diseases were the first four illnesses that threaten workers' life, and they accounted for 73.2% of all deaths. The resultsof this study showed that the standardized mortality ratio for all subjects was 1.02, which is very close to that expected on the basis of the China national mortality rates. Statistically significant mortality excesses for respiratory disease (SMR=1.36), pneumoconiosis (SMR=37.34), infectious disease (SMR=5.70) and pulmonary tuberculosis (SMR=3.88) were observed. The mortality of 2938 dust-exposed workers was higher than that of 1913 non dust-exposed workers. Except for pneumoconiosis, the mortality from lung cancer, non-malignant respiratory diseases and pulmonary tuberculosis in dust-exposed workerswere significantly increased as compared with that in non-exposed workers, and the relative risks(RRs) were 1.86 (1.16-2.99), 2.50 (1.84-3.40), 1.81 (1.34-2.45). The exposure-response relationships between cumulative dust exposure level and mortality from all causes, colorectal cancer, lung cancer, respiratory diseases, and pulmonary tuberculosis were also identified. The findings indicatedthat silica mixed dust in ceramic factories has harmful impact on the workers' health and life span in ceramic factory.