TY - JOUR T1 - Respiratory disease in United States farmers JF - Occupational and Environmental Medicine JO - Occup Environ Med SP - 484 LP - 491 DO - 10.1136/oemed-2013-101983 VL - 71 IS - 7 AU - Jane A Hoppin AU - David M Umbach AU - Stuart Long AU - Jessica L Rinsky AU - Paul K Henneberger AU - Paivi M Salo AU - Darryl C Zeldin AU - Stephanie J London AU - Michael C R Alavanja AU - Aaron Blair AU - Laura E Beane Freeman AU - Dale P Sandler Y1 - 2014/07/01 UR - http://oem.bmj.com/content/71/7/484.abstract N2 - Objectives Farmers may be at increased risk for adverse respiratory outcomes compared with the general population due to their regular exposures to dusts, animals and chemicals. However, early life farm exposures to microbial agents may result in reduced risk. Understanding respiratory disease risk among farmers and identifying differences between farmers and other populations may lead to better understanding of the contribution of environmental exposures to respiratory disease risk in the general population. Methods We compared the prevalence of self-reported respiratory outcomes in 43548 participants from the Agricultural Health Study (AHS), a prospective cohort of farmers and their spouses from Iowa and North Carolina, with data from adult participants in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) over the same period (2005–2010). Results AHS participants had lower prevalences of respiratory diseases (asthma, adult-onset asthma, chronic bronchitis and emphysema), but higher prevalences of current respiratory symptoms (wheeze, cough and phlegm) even after controlling for smoking, body mass index and population characteristics. The overall prevalence of asthma in the AHS (7.2%, 95% CI 6.9 to 7.4) was 52% of that in NHANES (13.8%, 95% CI 13.3 to 14.3), although the prevalence of adult-onset asthma among men did not differ (3.6% for AHS, 3.7% for NHANES). Conversely, many respiratory symptoms were more common in the AHS than NHANES, particularly among men. Conclusions These findings suggest that farmers and their spouses have lower risk for adult-onset respiratory diseases compared with the general population, and potentially higher respiratory irritation as evidenced by increased respiratory symptoms. ER -