Agricultural Respiratory Diseases

The Keokuk County Rural Health Study

“…Increased prevalence of agriculturally-related bronchitis, asthma, small airway obstruction, airway hyperreactivity, and pulmonary edema with acute respiratory distress syndrome as a result of these several exposures are all well documented. 10,11,12 In addition, farmers and their families are at increased risk for several other occupational diseases including increased rates of dermatitis from a variety of exposures, for noise-induced hearing loss from farm equipment, to stress-related depression and suicide, and are often poor, uninsured, and lack adequate health care. 12,13 The Keokuk County Rural Health Study is a unique, large, populationbased, prospective study which systematically assesses respiratory disease, injury, and other health outcomes in relation to agricultural, occupational, and environmental exposures in one rural Iowa county.…”

Cor pulmonale and pneumoconiotic lung disease: An investigation using hospital discharge data

“…It has also been reported to complicate talc pneumoconiosis [Kleinfeld et al, 1963[Kleinfeld et al, , 1967. Evidence of cor pulmonale was noted on postmortem examination of coal miners [Rasmussen et al, 1968;Naeye and Dellinger, 1970;Naeye and Laquer, 1970;Naeye, 1971;Naeye and Dellinger, 19721, in pathological descriptions of silicotic men [Gross, 19631, and following inhalation studies in rabbits [Schepers, 19591. Recent texts on occupational lung disease include cor pulmonale among the classic complications or end-stage outcomes of the pneumoconioses [Morgan and Seaton, 1984;Parkes, 1982;Merchant, 1986;Rom, 19831, and pneumoconiosis is included among the pathogenetic mechanisms for chronic pulmonary hypertension and cor pulmonale [Fishman, 19871. However, to put this in perspective, Morgan [1984] has pointed out that findings such as those of Rasmussen et al [1968] have been dismissed [Stanescu, 19691, and emphasized that it is generally accepted that simple coal workers' pneumoconiosis seldom leads to right ventricular hypertrophy.…”