Browsing by Subject "poultry workers"
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Item Lung Cancer Risk Among Workers in Poultry Slaughtering and Processing Plants: A Pilot Study(2008-05-01) Preacely, Nykiconia D.; Ramphal-Naley, Lilly; Cardarelli, Kathryn; Qualls-Hampton, RaquelPreacely, Nykiconia D., Lung Cancer Risk Among Workers in Poultry Slaughtering and Processing Plants: A Pilot Study. Doctor of Public Health (Epidemiology), May 2008, 104 pp., 21 tables, 4 figures, bibliography, 50 titles. Poultry workers are at a great risk of exposure to potentially harmful transmissible agents which can cause cancer in poultry; yet there are few epidemiological studies that examine the association of occupation and illnesses experienced by these workers. Workers in poultry slaughtering and processing plants are well suited to investigate the effects of exposure to poultry oncogenic agents because they have one of the highest human exposure to carcinogenic chemicals formed during the packaging and preparation of poultry. The preparations of poultry via smoking, and frying are additional exposures that release carcinogens which may be involved in lung cancer risk among poultry workers. Union records from several unions belonging to the United Food & Commercial Workers International Union for the years 1949-1989 were used to identify a cohort of workers once employed in poultry slaughtering and processing plants. The current research investigated whether certain occupational exposures were associated with lung cancer mortality among these workers. The research employed a case cohort design that provided individual level occupational and lifestyle data for workers who died with lung cancer between 1990 and 2003 compared to a sub-cohort of individuals randomly sampled from the entire cohort. It is anticipated that by identifying potentially harmful exposures in this industry, future research may focus on developing methods to alleviate them among poultry workers. The results of this study will provide public health professionals and the poultry industry with new information on the occupational exposures not previously explored in relation to lung cancer mortality among poultry slaughtering/processing plant workers.Item Risk of Hematopoietic Cancer Associated Mortality among Workers in the Poultry Slaughtering and Processing Industries(2015-05-01) Bangara, Saritha; Felini, Martha J.Objectives: Previous occupational cohort studies among poultry workers have revealed an excess risk of cancer-related mortality, including deaths due to hematopoietic malignancies. However, specific occupational and non-occupational exposures contributing to this excess risk have yet to be identified. Poultry workers are particularly at high risk since an average of 175,000 chickens are killed daily in poultry plants in the United States. This brings poultry workers into intimate contact with their blood, organs, and secretions, which may harbor transmissible oncogenic viruses. Moreover, they are exposed to potentially carcinogenic chemicals that are emitted during packaging and preparation. Hence, our study was conducted to provide preliminary evidence of which specific poultry related and non-poultry related occupational tasks increase the risk of mortality from hematopoietic cancer among poultry workers. Methods: A pilot case-cohort study was conducted using a combined cohort of 30,411 highly exposed poultry workers and 16,408 control subjects. Exposures pertaining to poultry and non-poultry related tasks were self-reported through telephone interviews from controls and next-of-kin for cases. Hematopoietic cancer mortality risk was assessed using logistic regression odds ratios (OR) and proportional hazard ratios (HR). Results: To assess possible differential recall between responses obtained directly from live study subjects and those from the next-of kin of deceased study subjects, the questionnaire was administered to a small subset of seven pairs of live control study subjects and their next-of-kin. Of the 245 direct responses obtained for dichotomous questions, there was an agreement of 80 % to 100% between the pairs for nearly 75% of the responses, with less than 60% agreement for only 8% of the responses. The highest risks for hematopoietic cancer mortality were among poultry workers in stockyards (OR=4.50, 95%CI=0.34-59.88), work as a poultry farmer (OR=2.67, 95%CI=0.78-9.23), working in non-commercial poultry farms (OR=2.53, 95%CI=0.85-7.52), handling of raw eggs in grocery stores (OR= 2.24, 95%CI=0.05-9.78), working in commercial poultry farms (OR=2.41, 95%CI=0.79-7.33), and spreading of chicken wastes (OR=2.00, 95%CI=0.58-6.89). Direct contact with poultry blood (OR=1.40, 95%CI=0.66-2.95) and killing chickens at work or outside of work (OR=1.35, 95%CI=0.26-7.14 and 1.63 (95%CI=0.72-3.65, respectively) were exposures that were also associated with an increased risk. Among non-poultry associated occupational exposures, working in a chemical plant (OR=6.92, 95%CI=0.56-85.23) and spraying insecticides (OR=3.03, 95%CI=0.78-11.83) incurred an increased risk. Work-related exposure to coal tar, naphthalene, or paraffin was associated with a significantly increased risk (OR=5.63, 95%CI=1.72-18.43). An elevated risk was also observed among subjects that worked at a gasoline station (OR=1.89, 95%CI=0.52-6.96). These exposures are known to be associated with increased exposures to PAHs and benzene. There was a statistically significant increased risk among those who sold seafood at work (OR=4.31, 95%CI=1.08-17.16) and among participants who worked on a commercial mixed farm (OR=3.15, 95%CI=1.20-9.92). Conclusion: This study provides preliminary evidence that exposure to poultry may be associated with increased mortality from hematopoietic cancer. A plausible explanation is that stockyard workers are regularly exposed to the bodily fluids of poultry, including blood and fecal matter, which may harbor oncogenic viruses that are transmissible to humans. The elevated risk estimates among workers exposed to gasoline as well as chemicals such as coal tar corroborate findings from previous studies that have established benzene and PAHs as risk factors for hematopoietic malignancies, respectively. While our findings support evidence from previous studies linking pesticide use and working on farms with mortality due to hematopoietic cancer, selling seafood was a unique risk factor that was discovered in our study, worthy of further investigation. Case-control studies nested within occupational cohorts of highly exposed subjects of sufficient statistical power may provide an efficient and valid method of investigating and confirming these findings.