Asbestos related diseases in Italy: an integrated approach to identify unexpected professional or environmental exposure risks at municipal level.
OBJECTIVE
Past intensive use of asbestos has implied severe public health consequences. Spatial distribution of deaths from malignant mesothelioma and of compensated cases for asbestos related diseases in Italy were compared to identify unexpected sources of asbestos exposure.


METHODS
Mortality for malignant mesothelioma at municipal level and geographical clusters of compensated cases for asbestos related diseases, as proxy of industrial asbestos exposure, were identified in the period 1988-2001.


RESULTS
Municipalities with at least four mesothelioma deaths and a statistically significant mortality excess were 148; and 53 out of them had no compensated case for asbestos-related diseases. Finally 22 of these lay outside of any aforementioned cluster, thus suggestive of a possible unrecognized exposure.


CONCLUSIONS
Availability long-term national figures and the different etiology of asbestos related diseases are the key features of this exercise that was applied to Italy, but can be replicated wherever registration systems of diseases related to long term exposure to asbestos are available.
Marinaccio
Alessandro
A
Department of Occupational Medicine, Italian National Institute for Occupational Safety and Prevention, Rome, Italy. alessandro.marinaccio@ispesl.it
Scarselli
Alberto
A
Binazzi
Alessandra
A
Altavista
Pierluigi
P
Belli
Stefano
S
Mastrantonio
Marina
M
Pasetto
Roberto
R
Uccelli
Raffaella
R
Comba
Pietro
P
D001194:Asbestos / Q000506:poisoning*; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D004781:Environmental Exposure / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000032:analysis*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007558:Italy / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D008654:Mesothelioma / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000209:etiology / Q000401:mortality; D016273:Occupational Exposure / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000032:analysis*; D010997:Pleural Neoplasms / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000209:etiology / Q000401:mortality; D012107:Research Design; D018570:Risk Assessment
D001194:Asbestos