The relationship between the presence of respiratory symptoms and the level of airborne endotoxins among workers in swine confinement buildings was studied. Participants were identified from the Saskatchewan Pork Producers Marketing Board registry. Subjects who spent at least 2 hours per day working in enclosed animal confinement buildings answered a questionnaire about respiratory symptoms and lung function was assessed clinically. In addition levels of airborne dust, gases, and endotoxin were measured in the indoor facilities. Mean levels of ammonia (7664417) and dust were dependent upon the season in which the measurements were made. No significant relationships were seen between the occurrence of work related symptoms and the degree of exposure. Analysis of chronic respiratory symptoms demonstrated associations between exposure to higher concentrations of ammonia and higher prevalences of chronic cough and chronic bronchitis and between exposure to higher concentrations of endotoxin and chronic cough. Multivariate analysis revealed a significant association between chronic cough and chronic bronchitis and the airborne concentration of endotoxin after controlling for cigarette smoking. A significant correlation was seen as well between forced vital capacity and the level of airborne endotoxin. The authors conclude that the respiratory health status of animal confinement workers may depend more on endotoxin levels than on airborne dust concentrations.
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.