Respiratory health assessment by questionnaire of 2024 workers involved in man-made mineral fiber production

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Abstract
A respiratory health questionnaire was administred to the workers producing man-made mineral fibers in three glasswool and two rockwool plants in France, in order to detect adverse effects resulting from fiber exposure. The mean ages of the 2024 male participants ranged from 32 to 41 years. The standardized questionnaire was filled in by the industrial physicians: occupational history, smoking habits, respiratory symptoms (cough, phlegm, dyspnea, asthma), irritative complaints of the upper airways (nasal fossae and sinuses, pharynx and larynx) were all recorded. Multiple unconditional logistic regression was used to test for a relationship between possible explanatory variables and these symptoms. The prevalence of respiratory symptoms (cough, phlegm, dyspnea) was strongly correlated with age and increased markedly among current smokers. Having adjusted for these confounding factors, significantly elevated Odds Ratios (ORs) for cough and phlegm were observed among the workers of one plant (51% of the whole study population) who had been exposed to fibers for a long time. In the same plant, the ORs for complaints of nasal fossae and sinuses increased significantly with the duration of fiber exposure, and one elevated OR was observed for pharyngeal and laryngeal symptoms. These findings were not consistent with the results observed in the four other plants (49% of the study population), since ORs for all these symptoms were either low or not significantly increased according to the duration of fiber exposure. This lack of similarity among plants could be explained either by differences in interviewers, age, seniority and tobacco consumption, or by secular changes in the industrial processes involved. The positive results observed contrast with a negative lung function study previously carried out in the same plant. Furthermore, the literature provides only one study reporting similar positive findings concerning pharyngeal and laryngeal complaints.