title: Effects of selection in a prospective study of forced expiratory volume in Vermont granite workers.
abstract: Granite workers lost to follow-up during a 5-yr study of pulmonary function were examined. We found that in workers who had left the industry for other employment, forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1) values declined at a faster rate than in those who remained employed or retired during the study period. We investigated the application of a currently recommended repeatability criterion for pulmonary function tests by looking at different patterns of failing to satisfy the criterion (PFT-failure) over multiple testing sessions. Workers with persistent PFT-failure were found to have faster rates of FEV1 decline than did subjects with none or only intermittent failures. In a regression analysis, job termination was found to be more strongly associated with a steep FEV1 slope when it had been preceded by a pattern of persistent PFT-failure.
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D004391:Dust; D004781:Environmental Exposure; D004812:Epidemiologic Methods; D005541:Forced Expiratory Volume; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008171:Lung Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009784:Occupational Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology*; D009787:Occupational Medicine; D011159:Population Surveillance; D012129:Respiratory Function Tests; D012907:Smoking; D014707:Vermont
chemical_list: D004391:Dust