Abstract
Since 1935 the state of North Carolina has designated industries where a worker might be potentially exposed to the hazards of silicosis, conducted studies of workplace conditions, recommended measures to reduce hazardous exposures, and performed preemployment and follow-up medical evaluations. Advantages of these accumulated data include: duration of the surveillance program; documented sampling/analytical methods; a wide range of industries (granite dimension stone, crushed stone, lithium, tungsten, pyrophyllite, feldspar, mica, kaolin, talc, quartz, foundry); the flexibility to construct several exposure metrics; and a companion medical surveillance program. Limitations include: absence of data for some workplaces; fluctuations in the scope of the program over time; the need to convert between sampling methods; and limited independent validation of formulas to combine impinger results. Nonetheless, the data still being amassed represent a unique record for the study of the risk of adverse health effects due to silica exposure. Rice, C.; Herring, R.L.: The North Carolina Dusty Trades Database: A Resource for Assessment of Silica Exposure Since 1935. Appl. Occup. Environ. Hyg. 10(12):1005–1008; 1995.