Epidemiology Branch, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, NIH, Research Triangle Park, NC, USA.
Epidemiology Branch, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, NIH, Research Triangle Park, NC, USA; Department of Epidemiology, UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
Environ Int. 2022 Sep;167:107433. doi: 10.1016/j.envint.2022.107433. Epub 2022 Jul 27.
The 2010 Deepwater Horizon (DWH) oil spill response and cleanup (OSRC) workers were exposed to airborne total hydrocarbons (THC), benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, o-, m-, and p-xylenes and n-hexane (BTEX-H) from crude oil and PM from burning/flaring oil and natural gas. Little is known about asthma risk among oil spill cleanup workers.
We assessed the relationship between asthma and several oil spill-related exposures including job classes, THC, individual BTEX-H chemicals, the BTEX-H mixture, and PM using data from the Gulf Long-Term Follow-up (GuLF) Study, a prospective cohort of 24,937 cleanup workers and 7,671 nonworkers following the DWH disaster.
Our analysis largely focused on the 19,018 workers without asthma before the spill who had complete exposure, outcome, and covariate information. We defined incident asthma 1-3 years following exposure using both self-reported wheeze and self-reported physician diagnosis of asthma. THC and BTEX-H were assigned to participants based on measurement data and work histories, while PM used modeled estimates. We used modified Poisson regression to estimate risk ratios (RR) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for associations between spill-related exposures and asthma and a quantile-based g-computation approach to explore the joint effect of the BTEX-H mixture on asthma risk.
OSRC workers had greater asthma risk than nonworkers (RR: 1.60, 95% CI: 1.38, 1.85). Higher estimated THC exposure levels were associated with increased risk in an exposure-dependent manner (linear trend test p < 0.0001). Asthma risk also increased with increasing exposure to individual BTEX-H chemicals and the chemical mixture: A simultaneous quartile increase in the BTEX-H mixture was associated with an increased asthma risk of 1.45 (95% CI: 1.35,1.55). With fewer cases, associations were less apparent for physician-diagnosed asthma alone.
THC and BTEX-H were associated with increased asthma risk defined using wheeze symptoms as well as a physician diagnosis.
2010 年深水地平线（DWH）溢油事故的应急和清理（OSRC）人员接触到了来自原油的空气中总碳氢化合物（THC）、苯、甲苯、乙苯、邻-间-对二甲苯和正己烷（BTEX-H），以及燃烧/火炬放空气中的颗粒物（PM）和天然气。关于溢油清理工人患哮喘的风险，人们知之甚少。
我们评估了哮喘与溢油相关暴露之间的关系，包括职业类别、THC、个体 BTEX-H 化学物质、BTEX-H 混合物和 PM，使用了来自海湾长期随访（GuLF）研究的数据，该研究是一项针对 24937 名清理工人和 7671 名非工人的前瞻性队列研究，这些工人参与了 DWH 灾难的清理工作。
我们的分析主要集中在溢油前没有哮喘的 19018 名工人身上，他们具有完整的暴露、结局和协变量信息。我们使用自我报告的喘息和自我报告的哮喘医生诊断来定义暴露后 1-3 年内的哮喘新发病例。THC 和 BTEX-H 根据测量数据和工作经历分配给参与者，而 PM 使用模型估计值。我们使用修正泊松回归估计与哮喘相关的溢油相关暴露与哮喘之间的风险比（RR）和 95%置信区间（CI），并使用基于分位数的 g 计算方法探索 BTEX-H 混合物对哮喘风险的联合作用。
OSRC 工人的哮喘风险高于非工人（RR：1.60，95%CI：1.38，1.85）。暴露水平越高，与哮喘风险呈依赖关系（线性趋势检验 p<0.0001）。随着个体 BTEX-H 化学物质和化学混合物暴露水平的增加，哮喘风险也随之增加：BTEX-H 混合物同时增加一个四分位间距与哮喘风险增加 1.45（95%CI：1.35，1.55）相关。由于病例较少，单独使用医生诊断的哮喘，关联不太明显。
THC 和 BTEX-H 与使用喘息症状和医生诊断定义的哮喘风险增加有关。
