An analysis of contributing mining factors in coal workers\u2019 pneumoconiosis prevalence in the United States coal mines, 1986\u20132018

Younes Shekarian,Elham Rahimi,Mohammad Rezaee,Naser Shekarian,Pedram Roghanchi

doi:10.1007/s40789-021-00464-y

Abstract

In the United States, an unexpected and severe increase in coal miners’ lung diseases in the late 1990s prompted researchers to investigate the causes of the disease resurgence. This study aims to scrutinize the effects of various mining parameters, including coal rank, mine size, mine operation type, coal seam height, and geographical location on the prevalence of coal worker's pneumoconiosis (CWP) in surface and underground coal mines. A comprehensive dataset was created using the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) Employment and Accident/Injury databases. The information was merged based on the mine ID by utilizing SQL data management software. A total number of 123,589 mine-year observations were included in the statistical analysis. Generalized Estimating Equation (GEE) model was used to conduct a statistical analysis on a total of 29,707, and 32,643 mine-year observations for underground and surface coal mines, respectively. The results of the econometrics approach revealed that coal workers in underground coal mines are at a greater risk of CWP comparing to those of surface coal operations. Furthermore, underground coal mines in the Appalachia and Interior regions are at a higher risk of CWP prevalence than the Western region. Surface coal mines in the Appalachian coal region are more likely to CWP development than miners in the Western region. The analysis also indicated that coal workers working in smaller mines are more vulnerable to CWP than those in large mine sizes. Furthermore, coal workers in thin-seam underground mine operations are more likely to develop CWP.

Highlights

Mining operations such as drilling, cutting, crushing, blasting, and material handling are inherently associated with dust generation (Suarthana et al 2011; Perret et al 2017)
This study aims to scrutinize the effects of various mining parameters, including coal rank, mine size, mine operation type, coal seam height, and geographical location on the prevalence of coal worker’s pneumoconiosis (CWP) in surface and underground coal mines
This study attempted to conduct such a comprehensive study using the longitudinal data collected from multiple credible sources such as Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) accident/injury, and MSHA employee/ production

Summary

Introduction

Mining operations such as drilling, cutting, crushing, blasting, and material handling are inherently associated with dust generation (Suarthana et al 2011; Perret et al 2017). Dust negatively impacts the air quality in the mining area and causes severe health hazards such as lung disease (Onder and Yigit 2009; NAS 2018). Cumulative inhalation of respirable coal mine dust, RCMD1 can lead to diseases such as coal worker’s pneumoconiosis (CWP), silicosis, mixed dust pneumoconiosis, dust-related diffuse. 1 ‘‘Any respirable dust in the mine atmosphere is considered respirable coal mine dust (RCMD) to which miners are exposed and, when measured, is counted for determining compliance with the respirable dust standard’’ During the last 2 decades, lung diseases among coal miners have been resurged in several countries, especially major coal producer countries (Rahimi 2020). Owing to the lack of reliable and consistent statistics, estimation of the global prevalence of lung diseases related to coal mine dust is difficult (Shekarian et al 2021a)

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