Järvholm Bengt
Department of Public Health and Clinical Medicine, Umeå University, NUS, SE-901 85 Umeå, Sweden.
Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2006 Sep;1076:421-8. doi: 10.1196/annals.1371.055.
The construction industry is a complex work environment. The work sites are temporary and rapidly changing. Asbestos has been widely used in construction industry, but the risks were primarily detected in specialized trades, such as insulation workers and plumbers. Today, the majority of cases related to asbestos exposure will occur in other occupational groups in the construction industry. In a large cohort of Swedish construction workers, insulators and plumbers constituted 37% of all cases of pleural mesothelioma between 1975 and 1984 while they constituted 21% of the cases between 1998 and 2002. It is estimated that 25-40% of all male cases of pleural mesothelioma in Sweden are caused by asbestos exposure in the construction trades. There are many other known carcinogens occurring in the construction industry, including PAHs, diesel exhausts, silica, asphalt fumes, solvents, etc., but it is difficult to estimate exposures and thus the size of the risk. The risk of cancer is less easy to detect with traditional epidemiological methods in the construction industry than in other industrial sectors. It is not sufficient to rely upon broad epidemiological data to estimate the risk of cancer due chemicals in the construction industry. Thus, a strategy to decrease exposure, e.g., to dust, seems a feasible way to reduce the risk.
建筑业是一个复杂的工作环境。工作场所是临时的且变化迅速。石棉曾在建筑业中广泛使用，但风险主要在诸如绝缘工和水管工等特定行业中被发现。如今，与石棉接触相关的大多数病例将出现在建筑业的其他职业群体中。在一大群瑞典建筑工人中，1975年至1984年间，绝缘工和水管工占所有胸膜间皮瘤病例的37%，而在1998年至2002年间，他们占病例的21%。据估计，瑞典所有男性胸膜间皮瘤病例中有25% - 40%是由建筑行业中的石棉接触引起的。建筑业中还存在许多其他已知致癌物，包括多环芳烃、柴油废气、二氧化硅、沥青烟、溶剂等，但很难估计接触情况以及因此产生的风险大小。与其他工业部门相比，用传统流行病学方法在建筑业中更难检测到癌症风险。仅依靠广泛的流行病学数据来估计建筑业中化学物质导致癌症的风险是不够的。因此，减少接触（例如粉尘）的策略似乎是降低风险的可行方法。
