Prevalence of occupational asthma in a community sample in Massachusetts

The study tried to contact 382 employed adults identified from those insured with a community health plan in Massachusetts, USA for clinic spirometry followed by 3 weeks diary cards and 2-hourly spirometry using the Easy-1 logging spirometer. 47% completed clinic spirometry, of these 78 provided some measures of serial PEF (36% of whole group) and 53% provided PEF data suitable for the evaulation of occupational asthma using Oasys. 13/95 had PEF evidence of occupatio0nal asthma (14% of those with adequate records, 3.4% of total group). There was a poor correlation between contemporary diary card symptoms and bronchodilator use captured on the Easy-1 spirometer and a telephone administered retrospective questionnaire.
There are lots of ways of interpreting this data. Assuming that those attending the clinic and completing PEF measurements were representative of all those insured asthmatics, occupational asthma was validated in 13% of insured adult asthmatics.

References

	Bolen AR, Henneberger PK, Liang X, Sama SR, Preusse PA, Rosiello RA, Milton DK, The validation of work-related self-reported asthma exacerbation, Occup Environ Med, 2007;64:343-348,

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