Black lung disease affects both current and former coal miners
A new study at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) underscores the importance of anticipating respiratory disease, including black lung disease and loss of lung function, in former coal miners to allow them to receive an appropriate diagnosis and medical care. The study also shows the importance of reducing exposures to coal mine dust, which puts current miners at risk for this serious work-related illness. Black lung disease is also known as pneumoconiosis.
In the current study, NIOSH investigators compared results from the program’s testing of active and former coal miners in Alabama, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia. They found that former miners were significantly more likely than current miners to have signs of black lung disease on x-ray imaging and impaired lung function on spirometry tests. The increased rate of disease among former miners persisted even after controlling for other possible causes, such as length of time spent mining, smoking, and body-mass index, or weight relative to height. On average, these former miners had not worked in the mines for 14 years. These findings indicate that black lung disease continues to be a serious public health problem in the United States that affects not only current miners, but also former miners.