Latency attention deficit: Asbestos abatement workers need us to investigate

Our plain-English summary of Latency attention deficit: Asbestos abatement workers need us to investigate, by C. Roelofs (American Journal of Industrial Medicine, 2015).

The study

• Author: C. Roelofs
• Journal: American Journal of Industrial Medicine
• Published: 2015;58(12):1231-4
• Cited by: 3 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

Abstract

Little is known of the impact of asbestos on the health of the workers in the United States who have removed or abated asbestos from buildings following recognition of its adverse effects on health. The United States does not have a national occupational health surveillance network to monitor asbestos-related disease and, while the United States Occupational Health and Safety Administration has a strong and detailed asbestos standard, its enforcement resources are limited. A significant proportion of asbestos abatement workers are foreign-born, and may face numerous challenges in achieving safe workplaces, including lack of union representation, economic vulnerability, and inadequate training. Public health surveillance and increased and coordinated enforcement is needed to monitor the health and exposure experiences of asbestos-exposed workers. Alarming disease trends in asbestos removal workers in Great Britain suggest that, in the United States, increased public attention will be necessary to end the epidemic of asbestos-related disease.

© 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

In plain English

This is a commentary, not an original research study. The author argued that little is known about the exposures and health of workers in the United States who have removed, or abated, asbestos from buildings. As grounds for concern, the author cited British studies from the GB Asbestos Survey. One of them (Harding and Darnton, 2010) reported that asbestos removal workers had a relative risk of 3.0 (95% CI 2.27 to 4.02) of dying of asbestosis and 2.1 (95% CI 1.79 to 2.70) of dying of mesothelioma, compared with workers in asbestos products manufacturing. The author described an investigation, just begun, of Cambodian asbestos abatement workers in Lowell, Massachusetts. Early findings were that these workers had done both jobs that followed worker protection rules and jobs well below that standard. Community leaders and health professionals said in interviews that many of these workers suffer respiratory ailments. The author noted that the federal OSHA asbestos standard was cited in 139 inspections in 2013-2014, 18 of them of abatement companies. The author concluded that public health surveillance and increased, coordinated enforcement are needed.

We wrote this plain-English summary from the full article with the help of AI, and a second AI model checked each sentence against the article. It is not the authors' wording; the abstract and the article are their own account.

What the study did and found

• Design: Commentary (opinion piece drawing on published studies, regulatory data and the author's preliminary interviews); not an original research study
• Who was studied: Asbestos abatement workers in the United States, with a focus on Cambodian refugee workers in Lowell, Massachusetts, studied through preliminary interviews with contractors, community leaders and health professionals (numbers of people interviewed not given)
• Exposure: Asbestos removal or abatement work in buildings such as schools, homes and industrial facilities (no specific fiber types named)
• Main results:
  • Preliminary investigations by the author: Cambodian workers in Lowell had worked on abatement jobs that followed worker protection regulations and on jobs that were well below that standard
  • Lowell Cambodian community leaders and health professionals told the author in interviews that many Cambodian asbestos abatement workers suffer respiratory ailments and are not fully aware of the danger of asbestos
  • OSHA data cited by the author: for 2013-2014, the federal OSHA asbestos standard was cited in 139 inspections, 18 of which were of abatement companies
  • The author's earlier study of mesothelioma in the Massachusetts Cancer Registry could not identify abatement workers because the records were not specific enough
  • From a cited British study (Harding and Darnton, 2010), not this article: asbestos removal workers had a relative risk of 3.0 (95% CI 2.27 to 4.02) of dying of asbestosis
  • From the same cited British study, not this article: asbestos removal workers had a relative risk of 2.1 (95% CI 1.79 to 2.70) of dying of mesothelioma, compared with workers in asbestos products manufacturing
• The authors' conclusion: The author concluded that public health surveillance and increased, coordinated enforcement are needed to monitor the health and exposure experiences of asbestos-exposed workers

Topics

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Latency, Abatement.

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• Exposure of UK industrial plumbers to asbestos, Part I: Monitoring of exposure using personal passive samplers — G. Burdett, D. Bard (2007)
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