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Updated Standardized Mortality Ratio Evaluation of Disease Risks of Shipyard Workers Exposed to Low Dose Ionizing
Xuguang Grant Tao1, Frank C Curriero, Elsbeth M Chee
1Division of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (Dr Tao); Department of Epidemiology (Dr Tao); Department of Epidemiology (Dr Curriero); Departmental of Environmental Health and Engineering (Dr Chee), Bloomberg School of Public Health; The Russell H. Morgan Department of Radiology and Radiological Science (Dr Mahesh); Division of Cardiology (Dr Mahesh), Department of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine; Environmental Health and Engineering (Dr Mahesh), Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland.
Objective:
To examine the risk of diseases among industrial workers with low and fractionated radiation exposures.
Method:
The 372,047 US male shipyard radiation and non-radiation workers were followed for 54 years and compared with US men using standardized mortality ratio (SMR) method.
Results:
SMRs for both radiation and non-radiation workers had lower risks of death from all causes (0.74; 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.74 to 0.75 and 0.77; 95% Cl 0.77 to 0.78, respectively) and from all cancers (0.92; 95% CI 0.91 to 0.93 and 0.90; 95% CI 0.89 to 0.91, respectively) compared with US men. Asbestos-related diseases including pleural cancers, mesothelioma, and asbestosis, but not lung cancers, were statistically higher in both radiation and non-radiation workers compared with the US men.
Conclusion:
US shipyard male radiation and non-radiation workers did not show any elevated mortality risks that might be associated with radiation exposure.
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