221331 Work-related Asthma Claims in Health Care in Ontario

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Gary Liss, MD, MS, FRCPC , Gage Occupational and Environmental Health Unit/ Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto / Ontario Ministry of Labour, Toronto, ON, Canada
Larisa Buyantseva, MD, MS , Gage Occupational and Environmental Health Unit/ Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
Carol Luce, BSc , Workplace Safety & Insurance Board, Toronto, ON, Canada
Marcos Ribeiro, MD , Gage Occupational and Environmental Health Unit/ Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
Susan Tarlo, MB, BS, FRCPC , Gage Occupational and Environmental Health Unit/ Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
  
Background: The health of workers in health care has been neglected in the past. There are few reports regarding occupational asthma (OA) in this group, and work-exacerbated asthma (WEA) has rarely been considered.

Methods: We examined the frequency of claims for OA and WEA allowed by the compensation board in Ontario, Canada for which industry was coded as “health care” between 1998-2002, to determine the frequency of OA and WEA, causative agents, and occupations.

Results: During this period, 5 claims were allowed for sensitizer OA, 2 for natural rubber latex, and 3 for glutaraldehyde/ photographic chemicals. The 2 NRL cases occurred in nurses who had worked for 12 and 13 years prior to the “date of accident”. There were 115 allowed claims for WEA; health care was the most frequent industry for WEA. Compared to the rest of the province, claims in health care made up a significantly greater proportion of WEA claims (17.8%) than OA (5.1%) (odds ratio, 4.1, 95% CI 1.6-11.6; p=0.002). WEA claims occurred in many jobs other than “classic” health care jobs such as nurses, and were attributed to a variety of agents such as construction dust and paint fumes.

Conclusions: WEA occurs frequently in this industrial sector. Those affected and attributed agents include many not typically expected in health care. The continued low number of OA claims due to NRL is consistent with the successful interventions for prevention.

Learning Areas:
Chronic disease management and prevention
Occupational health and safety
Public health or related organizational policy, standards, or other guidelines

Learning Objectives:
Describe the burden of illness and frequency of compensation claims for occupational asthma and work-exacerbated asthma in the health care industry in Ontario, Canada over a 5-year period.

Keywords: Asthma, Health Care Workers

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: Occupational medicine specialist and many years of researching work-related asthma
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

Back to: 5070.1: Occupational Health and Safety Roundtable Presentations III