RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 Assessing the impact of national level interventions on workplace respiratory disease in the UK: part 2—regulatory activity by the Health and Safety Executive JF Occupational and Environmental Medicine JO Occup Environ Med FD BMJ Publishing Group Ltd SP 483 OP 490 DO 10.1136/oemed-2012-101124 VO 70 IS 7 A1 Stocks, S J A1 McNamee, R A1 Turner, S A1 Carder, M A1 Agius, R M YR 2013 UL http://oem.bmj.com/content/70/7/483.abstract AB Objective To investigate whether interventions implemented by the UK Health and Safety Executive addressing exposure to isocyanate-based spray paints in motor vehicle repair (MVR), flour dust in craft bakeries, rosin-based solder flux fume (RBSFF) in the electronics industry, metalworking fluids and wood dust coincided with a decline in incidence of work-related short latency respiratory disease (SLRD) or asthma in the target groups. Method Changes in the incidence of SLRD reported to a UK-based surveillance scheme were compared using a longitudinal, negative binomial regression model with β distributed random effects. An interrupted time series design was used and comparisons according to inclusion or exclusion in the target group were made by including a statistical interactions expressed as a ratio of incidence rate ratios (RIRRs) in the model. Results The incidence of SLRD attributed to flour dust significantly increased relative to all other agents (RIRR: 1.10; 95% CI 1.06 to 1.16) whereas SLRD attributed to RBSFF significantly declined relative to all other agents (0.94; 0.90 to 0.99). No significant changes in the incidence of SLRD attributed to wood dust (1.03; 0.91 to 1.16) or spray paints (1.03; 0.95 to 1.11) relative to all other agents were observed. A higher proportion of reports originated from the industries targeted by the intervention for RBSFF (65/107; 61%) than spray painting (27/93; 27%) or wood dust (16/42; 38%). Conclusions These data support a beneficial effect of interventions to reduce exposure to RBSFF but an increase in SLRD attributed to flour dust may indicate increased exposure or increased awareness of the problem.