Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, Occupational and Environmental Epidemiology Branch, National Cancer Institute), Bethesda, Maryland, USA.
Institut National de Recherche et de Sécurité, Vandoeuvre-lès-Nancy, France (work was done while at Occupational and Environmental Epidemiology Branch, Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.
Am J Ind Med. 2023 Jul;66(7):561-572. doi: 10.1002/ajim.23486. Epub 2023 Apr 23.
BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVE: Farmers conduct numerous tasks with potential for endotoxin exposure. As a first step to characterize endotoxin exposure for farmers in the Biomarkers of Exposure and Effect in Agriculture (BEEA) Study, we used published data to estimate task-specific endotoxin concentrations.
We extracted published data on task-specific, personal, inhalable endotoxin concentrations for agricultural tasks queried in the study questionnaire. The data, usually abstracted as summary measures, were evaluated using meta-regression models that weighted each geometric mean (GM, natural-log transformed) by the inverse of its within-study variance to obtain task-specific predicted GMs.
We extracted 90 endotoxin summary statistics from 26 studies for 9 animal-related tasks, 30 summary statistics from 6 studies for 3 crop-related tasks, and 10 summary statistics from 5 studies for 4 stored grain-related tasks. Work in poultry and swine confinement facilities, grinding feed, veterinarian services, and cleaning grain bins had predicted GMs > 1000 EU/m . In contrast, harvesting or hauling grain and other crop-related tasks had predicted GMs below 100 EU/m .
These task-specific endotoxin GMs demonstrated exposure variability across common agricultural tasks. These estimates will be used in conjunction with questionnaire responses on task duration to quantitatively estimate endotoxin exposure for study participants, described in a companion paper.
背景/目的：农民从事许多可能接触内毒素的工作。作为生物标志物暴露与效应在农业研究（BEEA 研究）中描述农民内毒素暴露的第一步，我们使用已发表的数据来估计特定任务的内毒素浓度。
我们从研究问卷中查询的农业任务的特定任务、个人、可吸入内毒素浓度的已发表数据中提取数据。这些数据通常以汇总指标的形式提取，然后使用元回归模型进行评估，该模型通过每个几何平均值（GM，自然对数转换）的倒数对每个 GM 进行加权，以获得特定任务的预测 GM。
我们从 26 项研究中提取了 90 项与动物相关任务的内毒素汇总统计数据，从 6 项研究中提取了 30 项与作物相关任务的汇总统计数据，从 5 项研究中提取了 10 项与储存谷物相关任务的汇总统计数据。在禽类和猪舍设施、研磨饲料、兽医服务和清洁谷物仓的工作中，预测 GM 值大于 1000 EU/m3。相比之下，收割或运输谷物和其他作物相关任务的预测 GM 值低于 100 EU/m3。
这些特定任务的内毒素 GM 值表明在常见农业任务中存在暴露变异性。这些估计值将与关于任务持续时间的问卷回答结合使用，以定量估计研究参与者的内毒素暴露情况，这将在一篇相关论文中描述。
