MORTALITY IN THE NEW-SOUTH-WALES COAL INDUSTRY, 1973-1992

Objective: To study the mortality of coalminers in New South Wales (NS W) between 1973 and 1992. Design and participants: An inception cohort of all male coal industry employees who entered the industry between 1 January 1973 and 31 December 1992 was constructed from the records o f Joint Coal Board medical examinations. This cohort was matched with the NSW Death Register to determine the number and causes of deaths in cohort members. Results: The cohort consisted of 23 630 men; 491 died during the study period. The standardised mortality ration (SMR) for all causes of death was 0.76; that is after age correction, coalminers have a 245 lower mortality than the general NSW population. Deaths fr om cancer were lower than expected and there was a 27% lower mortality from respiratory disease. However, a substantial excess of non-motor- vehicle accidents (SMR, 1.60) was found. Most of these deaths can be a ttributed to occupation, and some to specific incidents. These excess death rates are confined to underground miners; open cut miners have a substantially lower rate than the general population. Conclusions: A healthy worker effect may explain the lower overall mortality. Althoug h ''black lung'' is no longer a problem, accidents are still common in underground coalmining. The major expansion of open cut mining in rec ent years has improved the situation.