A Safety News article.
Workplace exposures are important preventable causes of COPD, with recent estimates indicating that around 14% of all such cases are related to work, say the researchers.
According to the study of nearly 100,000 people aged between 40 and 69, workplace exposure to pesticides at any point was associated with a 13 per cent heightened risk of COPD. High cumulative exposure (a combination of intensity and duration of exposure) was associated with a 32 per cent heightened risk. The background risk of COPD was 8 per cent.
The scientists took smoking and asthma into account in their analysis. They also looked at the risk of COPD from other things people were exposed to at work, including dusts and metals, and found no increase in COPD risk from those.