Mortality experience of family contacts of asbestos factory workers

Our plain-English summary of Mortality experience of family contacts of asbestos factory workers, by L. Joubert, H. Seidman, I.J. Selikoff (Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1991).

The study

• Authors: L. Joubert, H. Seidman, I.J. Selikoff
• Journal: Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
• Published: 1991;643:416-8
• Cited by: 16 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher
• In J-M's library: Johns-Manville's company medical library held a copy (J-M no. 004861).

Summary of the article

This short report described deaths among household contacts of workers at UNARCO Industries, an amosite asbestos factory in New Jersey that made thermal insulation from 1941 to 1954. The contacts were people who lived with a worker during his or her employment. The authors believed they were exposed to asbestos dust carried home on the worker's work clothes, hair and shoes. None had personal occupational exposure. The factory employed 1664 workers, who had 4044 household contacts. Of these contacts, 878 were examined (1973-1976 according to the table; the authors stated they had been observing the group since 1975), and 870 (99.1%) were traced through January 1990. Most contacts were first exposed at ages 10 to 15. The worker's length of employment, ranging from one day to 13 years, was used in place of each contact's exposure, whose intensity and duration were not known. Death certificates were obtained for all deaths and coded by the cause on the certificate. There were 115 deaths, of which 43 were from cancer: lung 12, digestive organs 10, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma 7, breast 4, pleural mesothelioma 4, reproductive organs 2, and other 4. The authors reported that 38% of deaths were from cancer, about double the national estimate of about 22%. They urged studies of other groups of family contacts to confirm whether such limited asbestos contact is as dangerous as it appeared.

PubMed has no abstract for this study, and the article doesn't print one. We wrote this summary from the full article with the help of AI. It is not the authors' wording.

In plain English

This short report followed 878 people who had lived in the same household as workers at UNARCO Industries. UNARCO was an amosite asbestos factory in New Jersey that made thermal insulation from 1941 to 1954. None of these household contacts had worked with asbestos themselves. Their exposure came from dust on the workers' clothes, hair and shoes, and most were 10 to 15 years old when it began. The authors traced 870 of them (99.1%) through January 1990 and reported on the 115 who had died, using the causes on death certificates. Of the 115 deaths, 43 were from cancer. These included 12 lung cancers, 10 digestive cancers, 7 non-Hodgkin's lymphomas and 4 listed as pleural mesothelioma. Cancer made up 38% of deaths, which the authors compared with a national estimate of about 22%. The authors did not know how intense or how long each person's exposure was. They called for studies of other groups of family contacts to confirm whether such limited asbestos contact is as dangerous as it appears.

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: Mortality follow-up of a cohort of household contacts of asbestos factory workers, reporting cause of death from death certificates. Cancer deaths were compared with a national estimated percentage, without formal statistical testing.
• Who was studied: 878 household contacts of workers at UNARCO Industries in New Jersey. They were examined 1973-1976, and 870 (99.1%) were traced through January 1990. None had personal occupational exposure to asbestos.
• Exposure: Household (non-occupational) exposure to amosite asbestos dust carried home on workclothes, hair and shoes by workers at an amosite thermal insulation factory that operated 1941-1954. Exposure intensity was not measured. Workers' employment ranged from one day to 13 years.
• Main results:
  • Among the household contacts there were 115 deaths, of which 43 were cancer deaths.
  • 38% of the household contacts' deaths to January 1, 1990 were from cancer.
  • The authors gave a national estimated overall percentage of cancer deaths of about 22%, and said their figures were about double that.
  • Of the 43 cancer deaths among the household contacts, 12 (28%) were lung cancer.
  • Of the 43 cancer deaths, 4 (9%) were listed as pleural mesothelioma. The table also labels this row 'nonspecified'.
  • Among the 43 cancer deaths, 7 (16%) were non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and 10 (23%) were cancers of the digestive organs.
  • Household exposure began at an early age, mostly 10 to 15 years old. The authors reported that deaths occurred between the ages of 70 and 80.
• The authors' conclusion: The authors noted that there is no known safe level of asbestos exposure. They urged studies of other groups of family contacts to confirm whether such limited asbestos contact is as dangerous as it appears, and whether many more people may be at risk of asbestos-induced cancer than now anticipated.
• Limitations the authors state:
  • The actual intensity and length of household exposure for each family contact were not known. Only the worker's dates and duration of employment were known.
  • Causes of death were coded from death certificates only.
  • Exposure information was missing for 201 cases.

Topics

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Unarco, Amosite, Thermal System Insulation (TSI), Occupational Exposure, Death Certificate, Pleural Mesothelioma.

Related studies

• Asbestos disease in family contacts of shipyard workers — K.H. Kilburn, R. Lilis, et al. (1985)
• A cohort study on mortality among wives of workers in the asbestos cement industry in Casale Monferrato, Italy — C. Magnani, B. Terracini, et al. (1993)
• Mortality experience of amosite asbestos factory workers: dose-response relationships 5 to 40 years after onset of short-term work exposure — H. Seidman, I.J. Selikoff, et al. (1986)
• Mortality experience of residents in the neighborhood of an asbestos factory — E.C. Hammond, L. Garfinkel, et al. (1979)
• Mineral fiber content of lung tissue in patients with environmental exposures: household contacts vs. building occupants — V.L. Roggli, W.E. Longo (1991)
• Asbestosis among household contacts of asbestos factory workers — H.A. Anderson, R. Lilis, et al. (1979)

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