abstract
- To test the hypothesis that uranium miners in New Mexico (NM) have a greater prevalence of cardiovascular disease than miners who extracted non-uranium ore.NM-based current and former uranium miners were compared to non-uranium miners by using cross-sectional standardized questionnaire data from the Mining Dust in the United States (MiDUS) study from 1989 to 2016.Of the 7,215 eligible miners, most were men (96.3%). Uranium miners (n = 3,151, 43.7%) were older and diabetic, but less likely to currently smoke or use snuff (p ≤ 0.001 for all). After adjustment for covariates, uranium miners were more likely to report angina (O.R. 1.51, 95% C.I. 1.23, 1.85) than non-uranium miners.Our data suggest that along with screening for pulmonary diseases, uranium industry workers should be screened for cardiovascular diseases.