Dust-related risks of clinically relevant lung functional deficits

Exposure standards in coal mines are based on risks of coalworkers’ pneumoconiosis. However respiratory disability in coalworkers can also result from functional lung damage. The aim of this study was to help inform the setting of dust standards by deriving and examining the association between FEY, and breathlessness in a group of 7000 coalminers; identifying the clinically relevant deficits of FEV, that this suggested; and calculating the quantitative relationships between exposure to coalmine dust and risks of these deficits.FEV1 was on average lower among men with breathlessness, with breathlessness more strongly related to observed FEV1 than to FEV, standardised for age and height. FEV1 differences associated with various increases in the risk of reporting breathlessness were identified and their relationships with cumulative dust exposure examined.An increase in cumulative dust exposure of 50 ghm-3 was associated with an increase of between 1% and 2% in the percentage of men with clinically relevant deficits. Increases were slightly higher among older men. Reduction in the current workplace standards for respirable coalmine dust would result in a small but significant decrease in the percentage of workers whose lung function was reduced to a level associated with a doubling of the odds of reporting symptoms of breathlessness. “”