The health effects of anthracite surface coal mine dust on miners were investigated. Medical examinations were offered to 1348 workers actively employed at 31 mines in the anthracite coal region of northeastern Pennsylvania; 1073 workers participated. A postero/anterior chest radiograph was taken and a spirometry test performed. Workers were divided into two main categories depending on whether or not they were exposed to dust in another job as well as working at the mines. Subsequent to these two divisions, each group was subdivided according to the work done at the mine: drilling, coal cleaning, or other jobs. The examinations indicated an increased prevalence of radiographic small rounded opacities in drillers, suggesting that the quartz (14808607) exposures at the drilling operations may have been excessive. Decreases in forced expiratory volume in 1 second, forced vital capacity, and peak flow were also significantly related to tenure at drilling operations after adjustments had been made in the data for age, smoking habits, and exposures in dusty jobs other than coal mining. No significant relationships were found for coal cleaning operations and either radiographic or spirometric test results. The authors recommend that further work should be done to determine whether average quartz exposures at anthracite surface coal mine drilling operations are within occupationally allowable standards, and to devise ways in which this dust exposure can be better controlled.
Links with this icon indicate that you are leaving the CDC website.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) cannot attest to the accuracy of a non-federal website.
Linking to a non-federal website does not constitute an endorsement by CDC or any of its employees of the sponsors or the information and products presented on the website.
You will be subject to the destination website's privacy policy when you follow the link.
CDC is not responsible for Section 508 compliance (accessibility) on other federal or private website.
For more information on CDC's web notification policies, see Website Disclaimers.
CDC.gov Privacy Settings
We take your privacy seriously. You can review and change the way we collect information below.
These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. If you do not allow these cookies we will not know when you have visited our site, and will not be able to monitor its performance.
Cookies used to make website functionality more relevant to you. These cookies perform functions like remembering presentation options or choices and, in some cases, delivery of web content that based on self-identified area of interests.
Cookies used to track the effectiveness of CDC public health campaigns through clickthrough data.
Cookies used to enable you to share pages and content that you find interesting on CDC.gov through third party social networking and other websites. These cookies may also be used for advertising purposes by these third parties.
Thank you for taking the time to confirm your preferences. If you need to go back and make any changes, you can always do so by going to our Privacy Policy page.