Underground coal mining: Relationship between coal dust levels and pneumoconiosis, in two regions of Colombia, 2014

In Colombia, coal miner pneumoconiosis is considered a public health problem due to its irreversibility, high cost on diagnosis, and lack of data related to its prevalence in the country. Therefore, a cross-sectional study was carried out in order to determine the prevalence of pneumoconiosis in underground coal mining workers in two regions of Colombia. The results showed a 35.9% prevalence of pneumoconiosis in the study group (42.3% in region 1 and 29.9% in region 2). An association was found between a radiologic diagnosis of pneumoconiosis and a medium risk level of exposure to carbon dust (OR: 2.901, 95% CI: 0.937, 8.982), medium size companies (OR: 2.301, 95% CI: 1.260-4.201), length of mining work greater than 25 years (OR: 3.222, 95% CI: 1.806-5.748), and a history of smoking for more than one year (OR: 1.479, 95% CI: 0.938-2.334). These results establish the need to generate an intervention strategy aimed at preventing the identified factors, as well as a timely identification and effective treatment of pneumoconiosis in coal miners, in which the commitment of the General Health and Social Security System and the workers compensation system is ensured. © 2015 Carlos Humberto Torres Rey et al.

• Fecha de publicación: 2015
• Institución: Universidad del Rosario
• Repositorio: Repositorio EdocUR - U. Rosario
• Idioma: eng
• OAI Identifier: oai:repository.urosario.edu.co:10336/21667
• Acceso en línea: https://doi.org/10.1155/2015/647878; https://repository.urosario.edu.co/handle/10336/21667
• Palabra clave: Salud ocupacional; Carbón; Promoción de salud; Pneumoconiosis; Occupational exposure; C major clinical study; Salud ocupacional; Enfermedad de los pulmones; Neumoconiosis
• License: Abierto (Texto Completo)