Mortality of a residential cohort exposed to radon from industrially contaminated soil
A historical cohort mortality study was conducted in three neighborhoods of Essex County, New Jersey, to investigate the mortality patterns of persons who had inhabited 45 homes documented to be contaminated by radon gas emanating from radium processing waste. Residency history and vital status were collected for 752 persons, comprising 91% of the subjects enumerated who had resided in the index homes for at least one year during the years 1923-1983. Standardized mortality ratios (SMR) were used to compare the death rates of the study group with the death rates of the United States and New Jersey. While there were no statistically significant excesses of lung cancer for the cohort or its subgroups, an elevated mortality rate for lung cancer was found for white males in the comparison of lung cancer mortality rates in the United States (SMR = 1.5, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.7-2.7) and New Jersey (SMR = 1.7, 95% CI 0.8-3.2). No excess of lung cancer was observed in females or nonwhites. The small size of the cohort and the inability to collect smoking histories or complete occupational data limited the study. Nevertheless, the degree of excess lung cancer among white males was in agreement with both the attributable and relative risk estimates per unit of exposure derived for radon from mining studies.
- Research Organization:
- New Jersey Department of Health, Trenton (USA)
- OSTI ID:
- 5927221
- Journal Information:
- Am. J. Epidemiol.; (United States), Vol. 129:6
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Mortality of lead smelter workers
Quantification of occupational lung cancer risk: a multistage approach to the cohort analysis of lung cancer mortality among steelworkers exposed to coke-oven emissions
Related Subjects
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
HOUSES
RADIONUCLIDE MIGRATION
LUNGS
NEOPLASMS
RADIOINDUCTION
RADON
RADIATION HAZARDS
SOILS
CONTAMINATION
INDOOR AIR POLLUTION
INDUSTRIAL WASTES
MORTALITY
NEW JERSEY
RADIATION DOSES
RISK ASSESSMENT
AIR POLLUTION
BODY
BUILDINGS
DISEASES
DOSES
ELEMENTS
ENVIRONMENTAL TRANSPORT
FEDERAL REGION II
FLUIDS
GASES
HAZARDS
HEALTH HAZARDS
MASS TRANSFER
NONMETALS
NORTH AMERICA
ORGANS
POLLUTION
RARE GASES
RESIDENTIAL BUILDINGS
RESPIRATORY SYSTEM
USA
WASTES
560161* - Radionuclide Effects
Kinetics
& Toxicology- Man
500300 - Environment
Atmospheric- Radioactive Materials Monitoring & Transport- (-1989)
510300 - Environment
Terrestrial- Radioactive Materials Monitoring & Transport- (-1989)