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Mortality comparisons of chemical workers hired before, during, and after World War II (1941–1945)
Author(s) -
Bond Gregory G.,
Lipps Thomas E.,
Cook Ralph R.
Publication year - 1989
Publication title -
american journal of industrial medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.7
H-Index - 104
eISSN - 1097-0274
pISSN - 0271-3586
DOI - 10.1002/ajim.4700150308
Subject(s) - medicine , world war ii , homicide , occupational safety and health , spanish civil war , injury prevention , suicide prevention , demography , first world war , poison control , refinery , environmental health , gerontology , law , history , engineering , ancient history , pathology , sociology , political science , waste management
Abstract Cause‐specific mortality was evaluated by period of hire for 37,682 male chemical workers in order to test the hypothesis that employees hired during World War II (1941–1945) were at increased risk for selected causes of death. One recent study of refinery workers reported that those hired during the war years had experienced greater mortality from external causes (accidents, homicides, and suicides), alcoholism, and cancers of several sites relative to employees hired before or after the war. In the present study, employees were divided into three period‐of‐hire subcohorts: prior to 1941, 1941–1945 (World War II), and 1946 and after. Comparison of observed mortality among these subcohorts through 1982 was made with expected levels based on age‐ and calendar year‐specific U.S. white male rates. Neither hourly nor salaried employees hired during the war showed evidence of higher mortality from homicide, suicide, alcoholism, or any of the selected cancer types suggested from the refinery study. Hourly, but not salaried, war years new hires experienced excessive mortality from only those accidents involving motor vehicles. Possible reasons for the discrepant findings between this and the earlier study of refinery workers are discussed, with methodological differences being dismissed.