Chest
Clinical InvestigationsMortality from Heart Disease in Coal Miners
Section snippets
METHODS
A cohort of 4,134 Appalachian coal miners was selected by the US Public Health Service in 1962-1963 for inclusion in a prevalence study of coal miners’ pneumoconiosis.2 Of the original cohort, 2,549 working miners out of a planned sample of 2,751 men, or 92.7 percent, and 1,177 ex-miners out of a planned sample of 1,397 men, or 84 percent, agreed to participate. Ex-miners are nonworking miners who have left the mines because of ill health, retirement, or for another occupation. The sampling
RESULTS
Table 1 gives a breakdown of standard mortality ratios (SMR's) for working and nonworking miners for all heart disease, ischemic heart disease, and for all causes of death. It can be seen that working miners have SMR's that are significantly below 100 for both heart disease categories and for all causes regardless of whether the base population is all men in the United States, all men in seven Appalachian states, or the miners themselves. Nonworking miners have SMR's which are at the average of
DISCUSSION
Higgins reported a SMR of 84 in England and Wales7 and 144 in the United States for coal miners dying from coronary heart disease.1 Our figure of a SMR of 73 for working miners is lower than that found in Great Britain. Higgins7 concluded that skinfold measurements of men with coronary disease suggest that they are slightly more obese than others. There also was a slightly higher proportion of exsmokers and a lower proportion of nonsmokers among the men with coronary disease. We found that
CONCLUSIONS
The following conclusions may be drawn from the analysis of these results:
- 1
Working coal miners have a reduced possibility of dying from either all heart disease or ischemic heart disease, while nonworking coal miners die at the average of the standard population.
- 2
Smoking increases the probability of dying from all heart disease in both working and nonworking coal miners. Smokers in the nonworking group have a significant excess of deaths due to heart disease.
- 3
Obesity alone does not cause
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Pneumoconiosis in Appalachian Bituminous Coal Miners. PHS Publication no. 2000
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Cited by (14)
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2019, International Journal of Research in Pharmaceutical Sciences
Manuscript received January 21, 1974; revision accepted September 18.