Abstract
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is the third leading cause of death after cardiovascular disease and stroke, and its incidence is associated with genetic, environmental, and occupational factors. Miner is high-risk population for COPD, but the global prevalence of COPD in this group is inaccurate. In this study, the environmental and occupational risk factors for COPD were explored comprehensively with a two-sample Mendelian randomization study by combining genome-wide association data from two large global sample sizes of publicly available databases, UK Biobank (n = 503,317) and FinnGen (n = 193,638), as well as the prevalence of COPD among miners was investigated with meta-analysis followed a random-effects model including seven studies (16,033 miners in total). This study found that asthma, smoking, shift work, and workplace dust exposure may increase an individual’s risk of COPD. The pooled prevalence of COPD among miners globally was 12% (95% CI: 8%, 18%), with higher prevalence of COPD among ex-smokers and dust-exposed individuals, and was significantly influenced by the method of diagnosis. Our findings suggest that there is currently a lack of practical criteria for diagnosing COPD in the physical examination and screening of miners. The actual prevalence of COPD may be underestimated due to the healthy worker effect and the phenomenon of job switching, and appropriate policies should be favored in the future to reduce the risk of COPD in miner.
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Funding
This work was supported by Collaborative Innovation Projects in Colleges and Universities of Anhui Province (GXXT-2022–065), Foundation for Top Academic Talents in University of Anhui Province (gxbjZD2022012), Promotion Plan for Research of Anhui Medical University (2021xkjT011), and Postgraduate Innovation Research and Practice Program of Anhui Medical University (YJS20230047).
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Zikai Liu and Tong Shen contributed to the study conception and design; Zikai Liu, Haihong Pan, and Bin Liu contributed to literature search, data extraction, quality assessment; Zikai Liu, Haihong Pan, Lanlan Li, and Hongxu Yang analyzed the data; Zikai Liu and Haihong Pan processed the figures and tables; Zikai Liu wrote the manuscript; Zikai Liu and Tong Shen revised the final paper; Tong Shen provided fund support and conducted project supervision. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Liu, Z., Pan, H., Liu, B. et al. Environmental and occupational risk factors for COPD and its prevalence among miners worldwide: a Mendelian randomization and meta-analysis study. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 97545–97561 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-29269-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-29269-z