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These two studies explored the links between working in construction and exposure to construction dusts on respiratory cancer and COPD.

The first study from Wang et al. looked at data from >25k US workers and including >5k deaths.

After adjusting for smoking and demographics, construction workers were nearly twice as likely to die from respiratory cancer or non-malignant respiratory disease compared to white collar workers.

Older construction workers were almost twice as likely to due from respiratory cancer compared to their white-collar counterparts.

This risk was ** 21 times higher ** for current and former smokers.

The second study from Bergdahl et al. (2004) looked at COPD in Swedish construction workers exposed to inorganic dust. This included asbestos, artificial mineral fibres, cement, concrete and quartz dusts, gases and irritants, fumes and wood dust.

>317k construction workers were tracked from 1971 to 1999.

In all, there was a statistically significant increase in risk of COPD due to elevated exposure to inorganic dust – e.g. around 12% increase. This equates to preventing 1 out of 10 tens deaths due to COPD by reducing workplace dust exposure.

The risk of developing COPD was even greater for non-smokers – twice as high for dust exposure, and nearly 3 and 4 times higher for gases and fumes, respectively. (Perhaps smoking and its strong links to COPD confound and mask the ill-effects of dust exposure in smokers).

Refs:

1. Wang, X., Dong, X. S., Welch, L., & Largay, J. (2016). Respiratory cancer and non-malignant respiratory disease-related mortality among older construction workers-findings from the health and retirement study. Occupational medicine & health affairs, 4.

2. Bergdahl, I. A., Toren, K., Eriksson, K., Hedlund, U., Nilsson, T., Flodin, R., & Järvholm, B. (2004). Increased mortality in COPD among construction workers exposed to inorganic dust. European Respiratory Journal, 23(3), 402-406.

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