Current issues of occupational diseases in mining and metallurgical workers of the Murmansk Region

Introduction: Ore extraction and metallurgical processing are associated with high rates of occupational diseases among miners and metallurgists.

Objective: To establish causes and risks of development, the structure and prevalence of occupational diseases in miners and metallurgists of the Murmansk Region.

Materials and methods: The materials of the study included three databases: 1) the Murmansk Regional Register of occupational diseases; 2) the register of extracts from occupational disease registration cards (Order No. 176 of the Russian Ministry of Health dated May 28, 2001); and 3) the results of public health surveillance in part of working conditions and occupational diseases for 2006–2023.

Results: A total of 2,686 new cases of occupational diseases in 1,243 miners and 1,168 cases in 574 metallurgical workers were reported over the study period. Significant differences in the causes and risk of development, disease structure and prevalence were found between the two groups of workers. In miners, heavy physical work was the main cause of health disorders (57.6 %) with musculoskeletal diseases prevailing (55.6 %), while the metallurgists mainly suffered from chemical exposure (54 %) and related respiratory diseases (52.7 %). Over 18 years, a significant trend towards a decrease in the number of workers with occupational diseases was observed in metallurgists (R² = 0.546) but was absent in the miners. Both the miners and metallurgists showed a tendency towards an increase in the number of diseases per worker: from 1.90 ± 0.07 to 2.21 ± 0.08 (p = 0.061) and from 2.02 ± 0.08 to 2.21 ± 0.12 (p = 0.189) cases, respectively. The miners were at a higher risk of developing diseases (OR = 1.25; 95 % CI: 1.12–1.37) and had higher disease rates compared to the metallurgists (102.95 against 76.34 cases per 10,000 workers). An increase in the proportion of women suffering from an occupational disease from 23.0 % to 45.2 % (p = 0.005) was established among the metallurgists.

Conclusion: Effective occupational disease prevention should take into consideration the differences in causes and risks, the structure and prevalence of health disorders among workers of mining and metallurgical enterprises of the Murmansk Region.

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