Historical Characterization of Exposure to Mixed Solvents for an Epidemiologic Study of Automotive Assembly Plant Workers

Abstract

This article describes the approach used to estimate historical exposures to organic solvents and lead for a group of hourly employees who worked in several large automotive assembly plants and who were subjects in an epidemiologic case-control study. The 1243 participants worked at various times from the 1940s to late 1980s in eight facilities with diverse operations and complex exposures to mixed solvents. Individual cumulative solvent and lead exposures were estimated using a number of available resources: employment applications which showed jobs held prior to hire by the automotive company, complete job histories maintained by the personnel department, industrial hygiene air sampling data collected by the company over the past several decades, observation of current operations, and information obtained from interviewing knowledgeable plant personnel. The general approach may have wide application in this corporation and in others that maintain similar personnel and industrial hygiene records.