Department of Epidemiology, Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA.
Epidemiology Branch, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, USA.
Environ Health Perspect. 2023 May;131(5):57006. doi: 10.1289/EHP11859. Epub 2023 May 24.
During the 2010 () disaster, response and cleanup workers were potentially exposed to toxic volatile components of crude oil. However, to our knowledge, no study has examined exposure to individual oil spill-related chemicals in relation to cardiovascular outcomes among oil spill workers.
Our aim was to investigate the association of several spill-related chemicals [benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, xylene, -hexane (BTEX-H)] and total hydrocarbons (THC) with incident coronary heart disease (CHD) events among workers enrolled in a prospective cohort.
Cumulative exposures to THC and BTEX-H across the cleanup period were estimated via a job-exposure matrix that linked air measurement data with self-reported spill work histories. We ascertained CHD events following each worker's last day of cleanup work as the first self-reported physician-diagnosed myocardial infarction (MI) or a fatal CHD event. We estimated hazard ratios (HR) and 95% confidence intervals for the associations of exposure quintiles (Q) with risk of CHD. We applied inverse probability weights to account for bias due to confounding and loss to follow-up. We used quantile g-computation to assess the joint effect of the BTEX-H mixture.
Among 22,655 workers with no previous MI diagnoses, 509 experienced an incident CHD event through December 2019. Workers in higher quintiles of each exposure agent had increased CHD risks in comparison with the referent group (Q1) of that agent, with the strongest associations observed in Q5 (range of ). However, most associations were nonsignificant, and there was no evidence of exposure-response trends. We observed stronger associations among ever smokers, workers with education, and workers with body mass index . No apparent positive association was observed for the BTEX-H mixture.
Higher exposures to volatile components of crude oil were associated with modest increases in risk of CHD among oil spill workers, although we did not observe exposure-response trends. https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP11859.
在 2010 年的 () 灾难中，应急和清理人员可能接触到原油的有毒挥发性成分。然而，据我们所知，没有研究调查过与石油泄漏工人心血管结果相关的个别石油泄漏相关化学物质的暴露情况。
我们的目的是调查与几种与溢油有关的化学物质[苯、甲苯、乙苯、二甲苯、正己烷（BTEX-H）]和总碳氢化合物（THC）与参加前瞻性队列研究的工人中发生的冠心病（CHD）事件的关联。
通过职业暴露矩阵来估计清理期间 THC 和 BTEX-H 的累积暴露量，该矩阵将空气测量数据与自我报告的溢油工作历史联系起来。我们将每个工人最后一天的清理工作后的 CHD 事件确定为首次自我报告的医生诊断的心肌梗死（MI）或致命性 CHD 事件。我们估计了暴露五分位数（Q）与 CHD 风险之间的关联的风险比（HR）和 95%置信区间。我们应用逆概率权重来纠正由于混杂和随访丢失引起的偏倚。我们使用分位数 g 计算来评估 BTEX-H 混合物的联合效应。
在 22655 名没有先前 MI 诊断的工人中，有 509 人在 2019 年 12 月前经历了冠心病事件。与每个暴露剂的参考组（Q1）相比，每个暴露剂的五分位较高的工人患冠心病的风险增加，在 Q5 观察到最强的关联（范围为 ）。然而，大多数关联没有统计学意义，也没有暴露-反应趋势的证据。我们在以往的吸烟者、受过高等教育的工人和体重指数较高的工人中观察到更强的关联。对于 BTEX-H 混合物，没有观察到明显的正相关。
原油挥发性成分的较高暴露与石油泄漏工人冠心病风险的适度增加有关，尽管我们没有观察到暴露-反应趋势。
