Some remediation workers who have worked at DOE sites cannot be identified. Complete rosters of current and former remediation workers do not exist. Reconstruction of rosters from multiple data sources at the sites is labor intensive and may exclude some groups of workers.
Accurate and complete exposure, work history, and medical records data are not available for this population. Although radiation exposure records appear to be complete, decentralized responsibility for chemical exposure assessment and other records has led to gaps in exposure, work history, and medical data.
Individual workers cannot consistently be linked to their exposure and medical data. The storage of data and records in hard copy format, on incompatible software platforms, and on media produced by now obsolete hardware has diminished the ability to identify workers and link them with their work history, exposure, and medical data. The failure to standardize data collection and archiving both within and among DOE sites will hinder linkage of individuals to their data.
At the present time the necessary information to conduct epidemiologic, exposure assessment, or hazard surveillance studies of remediation workers is not available. The absence of worker rosters, the difficulty of creating such rosters with currently available data, gaps in work history, exposure, and medical data, and data linkage problems limit the ability to conduct accurate and comprehensive studies of remediation workers.
PDF copies: Final report (26 KB), Appendix I, Instruction Manual for Testing (2575 KB), Appendix II, Baseline Medical Questionnaire (82 KB), Appendix II, Pre-Shift Questionnaire (33 KB), Appendix II, Mid-Shift Questionnaire (67 KB), Appendix II, Post-Shift Questionnaire (69 KB), Appendix III, Consent Form (34 KB), Appendix IV, Outline of Data Analysis (72 KB), Appendix V, Add-On Study of mRNA (148 KB)
This study included Rocky Flats workers who died between 1952 and 1996, and had three main components:
Cohort Mortality Study: This component examined the causes of death among 16,303 Rocky Flats production workers employed for 6 months or more between 1952 and 1989.
Nested Lung Cancer Case Control Study: A case-control study was implemented to compare 180 workers who died and had been diagnosed with lung cancer with a control group of 720 workers who had not been diagnosed with lung cancer. The goal of this component was to determine whether subjects with lung cancer had higher internal lung doses than those who did not have lung cancer, and to determine whether smoking frequency or other variables could have affected this relationship.
Exposure Assessment: Plant records were used to estimate annual external penetrating radiation doses, cumulative internal exposure to plutonium, and estimates of annual exposures to asbestos, beryllium, and eight other toxic chemicals for workers in the cohort.
A version of this report, created after a final report was received by NIOSH and communicated with site workers and management, is available on the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment web site. The link to that site is http://www.cdphe.state.co.us/rf/rfpworkerstudy/RockyFlatsFinalNIOSHReport_text.pdf
This page was last modified on 06/22/2005 |