A cohort mortality study of workers in a soup manufacturing plant.
There has been no study of disease risk or exposures in workers in soup manufacturing plants. These workers may have hazardous exposures to biological and chemical cancer-causing agents at the workplace. The authors report here on mortality in 1,779 workers from a plant in Baltimore, Maryland. Standardized mortality ratios (SMRs) were estimated using the US population for comparison. Significantly increased mortality was observed for cancer of the floor of the mouth, colon cancer, epilepsy, and chronic nephritis in certain groups. Significantly decreased SMRs were observed for some causes. The findings are important, given the complete absence of data on this occupational group. It is not known whether the associations observed are related to occupational or nonoccupational exposures, or due to chance. The findings do, however, indicate that further studies of this occupational group are warranted.
Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, University of North Texas Health Science Center, Fort Worth, Texas 76107, USA.
Kyung-Mee
KM
Choi
Harrison
H
Ndetan
Eric
E
Johnson
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D015142:Baltimore; D002423:Cause of Death; D002908:Chronic Disease; D015331:Cohort Studies; D004827:Epilepsy / Q000401:mortality; D005260:Female; D005511:Food Handling; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000401:mortality; D009393:Nephritis / Q000401:mortality; D009784:Occupational Diseases / Q000401:mortality*; D016273:Occupational Exposure / Q000009:adverse effects* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012189:Retrospective Studies