RESPIRATORY HEALTH OF AUTOMOBILE WORKERS EXPOSED TO METAL-WORKING FLUID AEROSOLS - RESPIRATORY SYMPTOMS

A total of 1,811 automobile workers at three General Motors facilities were evaluated by questionnaire for possible respiratory effects resu lting from airborne exposures to metal-working fluids (MWF): 1,042 cur rently worked as machinists and were exposed to one of three types of MWF aerosols (straight mineral oils, soluble oil emissions, or water-b ased synthetic fluids that contained no oils); 769 assembly workers, w ithout direct exposure, sewed as an internal reference group (of these , 239 had never worked as machinists). Symptoms of usual cough, usual phlegm, wheezing, chest tightness, and breathlessness, as well as phys ician-diagnosed asthma, and chronic bronchitis were the primary outcom es examined. Machinists as a whole had higher prevalence of cough, phl egm, wheezing, and breathlessness than that of assembly workers. Adjus ting for confounding, phlegm and wheeze were associated with increasin g levels of current exposure to straight oils; cough, phlegm, wheeze, chest tightness, and chronic bronchitis were associated with increasin g levels of current exposure to synthetics. In models that included bo th past and current exposure, only current exposures to straight and s ynthetic fluids were associated with current symptoms. (C) 1997 Wiley- Liss, Inc.