Nonmalignant respiratory disease mortality among woodworkers participating in the American Cancer Society Cancer Prevention Study-II (CPS- II)

Nonmalignant respiratory disease (NMRD) mortality was examined among woodworkers participating in the American Cancer Society's CPS-II cohort study. During the 6-year prospective follow-up, there were 97 NMRD deaths among 11,541 men reporting employment in wood-related occupations and 1,338 NMRD deaths among 317,424 men reporting no exposure to wood dust or wood- related jobs. Relative risks, adjusted for age and smoking, were calculated using Poisson regression. A small excess of NMRD was observed among woodworkers. However, the relative risk was higher among woodworkers who did not report exposure to wood dust (RR = 1.52, 95% CI = 1.18-1.97) than those who did (RR = 1.27, 95% CI = 0.91-1.77), and no clear trend with duration of exposure was observed. An excess of NMRD was observed among woodworkers reporting exposure to asbestos (RR = 1.59, 95% CI = 0.85-2.96), as well as the small number of woodworkers reporting exposure to formaldehyde (RR = 1.95, 95% CI = 0.63-6.06), but men not reporting exposure to these substances also had an excess risk. Although limited by a short follow-up period and crude indicators of exposure, the strengths of this analysis were the ability to compare woodworkers to a similar, healthy population and to adjust for the effects of smoking. Cohort studies with better exposure information are needed to examine the role of occupational exposures among woodworkers in the etiology of respiratory disease.