Source: Annual Congress 2010 - Occupational asthma
Disease area: Airway diseases

Abstract

Introduction:
Occupational exposures may cause adult onset asthma. We present the prevalence of exposure to asthmagenic agents and the associated risk of asthma at age 33 and by age 42 in a UK birth cohort.
Methods:
9890 participants provided an occupational history from entry to work force. Blind to asthma status job descriptions were re-coded and applied to an Asthma Specific Job Exposure Matrix, including an expert evaluation step. Exposure to 22 agents was assigned. Major high risk groups are high molecular weight (HMW) low molecular weight (LMW) antigens mixed environments and irritants. Using logistic regression adjusted for sex, smoking, father‘s social class at birth, region and hayfever at 16 and excluding those with ‘asthma/wheezy bronchitis‘ by age 16, we assessed the association of ever asthma at age 33 and by age 42 with these exposures.
Results:
From 1974-2001 42% of the cohort had been exposed to high risk asthmagenic agents at work. Excluding ‘asthma/wheezy bronchitis‘ by age 16, the prevalence of ever asthma at 33 was 4.8% and by 42 was 9%. At age 33 only exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) showed a significant association after correction for multiple testing. By age 42 ‘any high risk exposure‘ was significantly associated (p=0.036) with 25% higher risk of asthma. LMW cleaning chemicals, HMW flour, HMW enzymes, textile production, possible irritants/gases/fumes, low antigens and ETS were significantly associated with an increased risk of reporting asthma by age 42.
Conclusion:
In this national population based study in order to observe associations of working in occupations known to be a risk for the development of asthma the period of follow-up had to be extended beyond age 33.

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Citations should be made in the following way:
R. Ghosh, P. Cullinan, D. Strachan, D. Fishwick, J. Hoyle, C. Warburton, D. Jarvis (London, , Sheffield, Liverpool, United Kingdom). Exposure to occupational agents and risk of asthma in the 1958 birth cohort. Eur Respir J 2010; 36: Suppl. 54, 1477

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