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Biomedical subjects

D Loomis

Publications and source records attributed to D Loomis.

49 records · Page 3Linked to original sources
PubMed1997

Trends in fatal occupational injuries and industrial restructuring in North Carolina in the 1980s.

OBJECTIVES: This study examined the relationship between changes in employment in North Carolina in the 1980s and fatal occupational injury rates. METHODS: Unintentional fatal occupational injuries (n = 1989) in North Carolina between 1978 and 1991 were identified via the medical examiner's system. RESULTS: Overall fatal injury rates declined during the 1980s, but rates increased 9.6% per year among manufacturing industries that declined in employment size; rates fell among service sector and manufacturing industries that grew. CONCLUSIONS: Increasing occupational fatal injury rates accompanied the decline in workforce in North Carolina's traditional, labor-intensive manufacturing industries during the 1980s, while service sector and expanding manufacturing industries have experienced declining fatal injury rates.

Accidents, Occupational↗
PubMed1997

Assessment of health risks due to hazardous air pollutant emissions from electric utilities.

Hazardous air pollutant (HAP) emissions from electric utilities were evaluated. Cancer risks, as well as noncancer effects, due to inhalation exposure were assessed for 67 HAPs. Also, cancer risks due to multipathway exposure to radionuclide emissions were assessed. In addition, an assessment of the fate of mercury (Hg) through various environmental media was included. Results suggest arsenic, chromium, and nickel are the HAPs that present the highest cancer risk due to inhalation exposure. For noncancer effects due to inhalation exposure, hydrogen chloride appears to present the greatest potential concern. The risks due to multipathway exposure to radionuclides are estimated to be of similar magnitude to the risks posed by inhalation of arsenic and nickel. Mercury is of potential concern for multipathway exposures because it persists in the environmental and bioaccumulates in the aquatic food web. The study suggests there is a plausible link between Hg emissions from utilities and the Hg found in soil, water, and freshwater fish.

Air Pollutants↗
PubMed1996

Review of occupational lung carcinogens.

Lung cancer is the most common malignancy in the United States and is ranked second only to bladder cancer in the proportion of cases thought to be due to occupational exposures. We review the epidemiology of occupational lung cancer, focusing on agents identified as pulmonary carcinogens by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. We derive estimates of overall relative risks from the major studies of these lung carcinogens, and we also provide estimates of the number of exposed workers. Using our data as well as estimates from other authors, we estimate that approximately 9,000-10,000 men and 900-1,900 women develop lung cancer annually in the United States due to past exposure to occupational carcinogens. More than half of these lung cancers are due to asbestos. This estimate is likely conservative, in that we have restricted our analysis to confirmed lung carcinogens and have ignored occupations with documented excess risk but for which the specific agents are unknown. Also, our estimate of the proportion of workers exposed in the past is probably too low. Our estimate should be viewed only as broad approximation. Nevertheless, it is in line with other estimates by authors using different methods. The current number of cases estimated to be due to occupational exposure reflects past high exposures and is likely to drop in the future, unless other occupational lung carcinogens are confirmed or new carcinogens are introduced into the workplace.

Acrylonitrile↗
PubMed1994

Varied forms of bias due to nondifferential error in measuring exposure.

Continuous exposure variables are frequently categorized in epidemiologic data analysis. It has recently been shown that such categorization may transform nondifferential error in measuring continuous exposure variables into differential exposure misclassification. This paper assesses the direction and magnitude of the resulting misclassification bias under a variety of practically relevant forms of nondifferential measurement error. The expected bias of measures of the exposure-disease association is toward the null in the case of purely random measurement error with a mean of zero. Systematic nondifferential over- or underestimation of the exposure may bias measures of the exposure-disease association either toward the null or away from the null, depending on the underlying distribution of exposure, the true exposure-disease relation, and the cutpoints employed for categorization. If exposure measurement error has both random and systematic components, the direction of the net bias is less predictable than with pure error of either type, but bias toward the null is increasingly likely as the random component grows larger. The results indicate the need for careful evaluation of potential effects of nondifferential exposure measurement error in epidemiologic studies in which categories are formed from continuous exposure variables.

Bias↗
PubMed1994

Practices of county medical examiners in classifying deaths as on the job.

Although annual United States occupational injury fatalities range between 7,000 and 10,400, consistent rules to determine which deaths are "occupational" do not exist. Fifty-seven North Carolina county medical examiners (MEs), responsible for more than 50% of all medical examiner cases in 1990, received our questionnaire. Fifty-three (93%) responded, classifying 22 scenarios as on-the-job deaths and indicating usual classification practices and information sources. Agreement varied among the scenarios, but those involving transportation and nonpaid workers elicited particularly inconsistent responses. Fifty-six percent of medical examiners have a general rule for determining on-the-job status, but deaths associated with motor vehicles, farming, and occupations other than the decedent's usual job were classified most inconsistently. The lack of standard definitions of "job," "work," and "on-the-job" is apparent in classification decisions. Certain work situations need special consideration.

Accidents, Occupational↗
PubMed1990

The COMPLY computer program for demonstrating compliance with national radionuclide air emission standards.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed national radionuclide air emission standards for a number of source categories. One of these standards applies to Nuclear Regulatory Commission Licensees and non-Department of Energy facilities having the potential to release radionuclides to the atmosphere. Approximately 6000 facilities are subject to the standard, which limits the effective whole-body dose commitment to the maximally exposed individual from radionuclide releases to the atmosphere. A computer program to assist the regulated community in determining compliance has been developed by the EPA's Office of Radiation Programs. The computer program COMPLY calculates the dose to an individual residing outside the facility. The program considers dose from inhalation, ingestion of contaminated food, air immersion, and ground deposition. It is based on models developed by the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements (NCRP). Compliance procedures provided in COMPLY are designed to reduce the burden on the regulated community. The approach begins with simple-to-use methods that are very conservative in determining compliance. The methods become progressively less conservative but more complicated at succeeding levels. Each higher level requires the input of site-specific information, but allows a more realistic estimate of dose. This paper describes the COMPLY program, and provides estimates of the work required and the degree of conservatism in the dose computed at each level.

Air Pollution, Radioactive↗
PubMed1987

Is social class standardisation appropriate in occupational studies?

Social class standardisation has been proposed as a method for separating the effects of occupation and "social" or "lifestyle" factors in epidemiological studies, by comparing workers in a particular occupation with other workers in the same social class. The validity of this method rests upon two assumptions: (1) that social factors have the same effect in all occupational groups in the same social class, and (2) that other workers in the same social class as the workers being studied are free of occupational risk factors for the disease of interest. These assumptions will not always be satisfied. In particular, the effect of occupation will be underestimated when the comparison group also has job-related exposures which cause the disease under study. Thus, although adjustment for social class may minimise bias due to social factors, it may introduce bias due to unmeasured occupational factors. This difficulty may be magnified when occupational category is used as the measure of social class. Because of this potential bias, adjustment for social class should be done only after careful consideration of the exposures and disease involved and should be based on an appropriate definition of social class. Both crude and standardised results should be presented when such adjustments are made.

Data Collection↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Estimation of particulate matter from visibility in Bangkok, Thailand.

Lack of daily data on airborne particles has been a common problem in an air pollution research. To deal with this problem, a regression model was developed to estimate daily PM10 concentration using visibility in Bangkok from 1992 to 1997, based on 1092 visibility/PM10 pair-observations on low humidity days (humidity < or = 76.5%). Visibility was significantly and inversely associated with PM10 (r = 0.71), after adjusting for minimum temperature and winter indicator variable. The R2 of the model was 0.51.

Air Movements↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Brain neoplasms among naval military men.

To evaluate risk factors for primary brain tumors, a case-control study was carried out with all death certificates and corresponding occupational histories of males registered in the Brazilian Navy Insurance from 1991 to 1995. Cases were 40 individuals with ICD-9 codes 191, 192.1, and 192.0 (brain and CNS tumors). Controls were 671 subjects who had other reported cancer sites. Men less than 56 years of age (odds ratio, OR = 4.63; 95% confidence interval, CI: 2.54, 8.45) and unmarried men (OR = 3.18; 95% CI: 1.69, 5.99) had higher mortality from brain tumors. After adjustment of age, marital status, and socioeconomic status, more brain tumors were found among health personnel (OR = 2.13; 95% CI: 1.07, 4.97) than in other occupational categories. Infantry servicemen engaged in combat training had borderline excess brain tumor mortality (OR = 2.30; 95% CI: 0.89, 5.99). More detailed occupational data on exposures and potential confounders are necessary to improve research on occupational risk factors.

Aged↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Bahia-Carolina Program in Environmental and Occupational Health: A North-South partnership for workplace and environmental justice.

The Bahia-Carolina Program in Environmental and Occupational Health is an interdisciplinary collaborative program in research and training linking the Institute for Collective Health (ISC), the Federal University of Bahia, Brazil, and the School of Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. An important goal of this Fogarty Center-funded project is to improve workplace and environmental conditions and the well-being of the general population, particularly those workers in the informal sector. Major accomplishments include training taking place in the United States, training in Brazil, and support of Brazilian institutions. Brazilians studying in the United States have researched occupational risk factors for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, the effectiveness of an environmental sanitation program, the health of refinery workers, and statistical methods for multilevel analysis, among other topics. The program also emphasizes the opportunity for U.S. faculty and students to learn from Brazilian colleagues. Challenges encountered in the collaboration process are described.

Brazil↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Is short-term training useful in international environmental and occupational health projects? Experience from the Balkans and Latin America.

Short courses/workshops for international training in environmental and occupational health are an important tool for supplementing longer-term training at the graduate-degree level. Considerable collective and shared experiences in short-term training have been accumulated among these 13 projects sponsored by the Fogarty International Center of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the International Training and Research in Environmental and Occupational Health (ITREOH) program. This article presents general aspects and considerations of short-term training and highlights guidelines drawn from specific experiences with such training activities in Balkan and Latin American countries.

Curriculum↗