Abstract
OBJECTIVE: To update information on the workers of the Texaco mortality study to determine if the patterns of mortality have changed with 16 additional years of follow up. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: All workers were employed for > or = 5 years at company refineries, petrochemical plants, and research laboratories from 1947-93. The cohort now consists of 28,480 employees with an average of > or = 20 years of follow up. RESULTS: The overall mortality, and most cause specific mortalities were lower than or similar to those for the general population of the United States. For white men (86% of the cohort), there were 8873 observed deaths and 11,181 expected resulting in a significantly lower standardised mortality ratio (SMR) of 79. There were significant deficits for all the leading causes of death in the United States including all cancers, cancer of the lung, stroke, heart disease, respiratory disease, and accidents. Slightly increased mortality was found for cancer of the pancreas, cancer of the brain and central nervous system, leukaemia, and cancer of other lymphatic tissue. For cancer of the bone, the SMR was 162 (95% confidence interval (95% CI) 86 to 278), and for benign and unspecified neoplasms, it was 152 (95% CI 109 to 206). Overall mortality patterns for non-white men and women were similar to those for white men. Mortality patterns for white men were also examined by duration of employment, time first employed, location, and by job and process unit. There were significantly increased SMRs for brain cancer for those people employed as laboratory workers and on units with motor oil and for cancer of other lymphatic tissue for people employed on the fluid catalytic cracking unit. CONCLUSIONS: The results of the updated study showed a favourable mortality experience for employees in the Texaco mortality study compared with the United States population. There were a few increases found consistently including, but not limited to, brain cancer and cancer of other lymphatic tissue. These increases led to additional analyses that will be discussed in the accompanying paper.
Full Text
The Full Text of this article is available as a PDF (96.6 KB).
Selected References
These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.
- Divine B. J., Barron V., Kaplan S. D. Texaco mortality study. I. Mortality among refinery, petrochemical, and research workers. J Occup Med. 1985 Jun;27(6):445–447. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Divine B. J., Barron V. Texaco Mortality Study: II. Patterns of mortality among white males by specific job groups. Am J Ind Med. 1986;10(4):371–381. doi: 10.1002/ajim.4700100405. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- McCraw D. S., Joyner R. E., Cole P. Excess leukemia in a refinery population. J Occup Med. 1985 Mar;27(3):220–222. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Monson R. R. Analysis of relative survival and proportional mortality. Comput Biomed Res. 1974 Aug;7(4):325–332. doi: 10.1016/0010-4809(74)90010-x. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Nelson N. A., Van Peenen P. F., Blanchard A. G. Mortality in a recent oil refinery cohort. J Occup Med. 1987 Jul;29(7):610–612. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Satin K. P., Wong O., Yuan L. A., Bailey W. J., Newton K. L., Wen C. P., Swencicki R. E. A 50-year mortality follow-up of a large cohort of oil refinery workers in Texas. J Occup Environ Med. 1996 May;38(5):492–506. doi: 10.1097/00043764-199605000-00010. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Shallenberger L. G., Acquavella J. F., Donaleski D. An updated mortality study of workers in three major United States refineries and chemical plants. Br J Ind Med. 1992 May;49(5):345–354. doi: 10.1136/oem.49.5.345. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Tsai S. P., Hardy R. J., Wen C. P. The standardized mortality ratio and life expectancy. Am J Epidemiol. 1992 Apr 1;135(7):824–831. doi: 10.1093/oxfordjournals.aje.a116369. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Tsai S. P., Waddell L. C., Gilstrap E. L., Ransdell J. D., Ross C. E. Mortality among maintenance employees potentially exposed to asbestos in a refinery and petrochemical plant. Am J Ind Med. 1996 Jan;29(1):89–98. doi: 10.1002/(SICI)1097-0274(199601)29:1<89::AID-AJIM11>3.0.CO;2-W. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Wong O., Raabe G. K. Cell-type-specific leukemia analyses in a combined cohort of more than 208,000 petroleum workers in the United States and the United Kingdom, 1937-1989. Regul Toxicol Pharmacol. 1995 Apr;21(2):307–321. doi: 10.1006/rtph.1995.1044. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Wong O., Raabe G. K. Critical review of cancer epidemiology in petroleum industry employees, with a quantitative meta-analysis by cancer site. Am J Ind Med. 1989;15(3):283–310. doi: 10.1002/ajim.4700150305. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]