Occupational exposure and chronic airway disease

Our aims were to study the association between past and present occupational airborne exposures and lung function decline, chronic productive cough and exacerbations of asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The study was based on two general population-based cohorts; The Copenhagen City Heart Study and the Copenhagen General Population Study. In our study, occupational airborne exposures were not significantly associated with lung function decline, or exacerbations in asthma and COPD in recent years. Chronic productive cough was associatede with selected occuaptional exposures in smokers only during the time period from 2003-2017, whereas significant associations were seen also in non-smokers in years before 1990. Exposure to gases & fumes was associatede with lung function decline in years before 1990. Our results sugges that selected occupational airborne exposures might have accelerated lung function decline decades ago but not in the recent years. Further studies with quantitative exposure assignment and with participants serving as their own controls are warranted,