Long-term exposure to cement dust and later hospitalization due to respiratory disease

The relationship between exposure to cement dust in a Portland cement factory and later hospitalization due to respiratory disease and in particular chronic obstructive lung disease (COLD) was examined in a cohort initially examined in 1974. A total of 546 men with different lengths of employment in the cement factory were compared with 857 randomly sampled men of the same age from the same geographical area. Information on hospitalization was obtained from a nationwide register administered by the Danish National Board of Health. During a 9-year, 8-month period, 7.8% of the total population studied had been admitted to hospital at least once because of respiratory disease and 4.3% had been admitted because of COLD. Cement workers had no increased rates of hospitalization when compared with other blue collar workers from the random sample or the whole random sample. A vague tendency towards increasing rates of hospitalization due to COLD with increasing duration of exposure to cement dust up to 30 years was found. Given at least one hospitalization, exposure to cement dust was not related to the accumulated number of days in hospital in the observation period. We conclude that long-term exposure to cement dust does not lead to higher morbidity of severe respiratory disease than other types of blue collar work.