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Occupational Exposures along the Life Cycle of Coal
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Occupational Exposures along the Life Cycle of Coal

A special issue of International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (ISSN 1660-4601). This special issue belongs to the section "Occupational Safety and Health".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (28 February 2023) | Viewed by 3114

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Derk Brouwer

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Occupational Health Division, School of Public Health, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg 2391, South Africa
Interests: exposure science; exposome; sampling strategy; exposure control; aerosols; skin contamination; health risk analysis
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Coal is critical to our world, through its use in providing much-needed affordable electricity and also in building our societies through its use in steel and cement; 37% of the world’s electricity and over 70% of the world’s steel are produced using coal. Apart from the obvious use of coal for combustion and conversion to coke, as mentioned above, both liquification and gasification of coal provide important chemical products. Moreover, coal combustion products (CCPs), e.g., fly and bottom ash, play an important role in concrete production and other building products.

Traditionally, the occupational hazards related to coal are very much focused on the health impact of occupational exposure to coal dust, especially the development of interstitial lung diseases, during excavation (underground and surface mining), and coal handling activities in fueled power stations.  However, both inhalation and dermal exposures during the production of coke (coal tar pitch) have also been reported.  

This Special Issue aims to showcase the relevance of occupational exposures and associated health risks during the life cycle of coal (from cradle to cradle) and invites critical reviews and research papers that highlight the variety of exposures. Especially welcomed are papers with topics that are beyond the excavation and combustion of coal, e.g., coal conversion processes and CCPs. All submitted manuscripts will go through a rigorous peer review process.

Prof. Dr. Derk Brouwer
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2500 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • coal
  • life cycle
  • exposure
  • occupational health
  • mining
  • combustion products
  • coke

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

15 pages, 553 KiB  
Article
Bayesian Hierarchical Framework from Expert Elicitation in the South African Coal Mining Industry for Compliance Testing
by Felix Made, Ngianga-Bakwin Kandala and Derk Brouwer
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2023, 20(3), 2496; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20032496 - 31 Jan 2023
Viewed by 1411
Abstract
Occupational exposure assessment is important in preventing occupational coal worker’s diseases. Methods have been proposed to assess compliance with exposure limits which aim to protect workers from developing diseases. A Bayesian framework with informative prior distribution obtained from historical or expert judgements has [...] Read more.
Occupational exposure assessment is important in preventing occupational coal worker’s diseases. Methods have been proposed to assess compliance with exposure limits which aim to protect workers from developing diseases. A Bayesian framework with informative prior distribution obtained from historical or expert judgements has been highly recommended for compliance testing. The compliance testing is assessed against the occupational exposure limits (OEL) and categorization of the exposure, ranging from very highly controlled to very poorly controlled exposure groups. This study used a Bayesian framework from historical and expert elicitation data to compare the posterior probabilities of the 95th percentile (P95) of the coal dust exposures to improve compliance assessment and decision-making. A total of 10 job titles were included in this study. Bayesian framework with Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) simulation was used to draw a full posterior probability of finding a job title to an exposure category. A modified IDEA (“Investigate”, “Discuss”, “Estimate”, and “Aggregate”) technique was used to conduct expert elicitation. The experts were asked to give their subjective probabilities of finding coal dust exposure of a job title in each of the exposure categories. Sensitivity analysis was done for parameter space to check for misclassification of exposures. There were more than 98% probabilities of the P95 exposure being found in the poorly controlled exposure group when using expert judgments. Historical data and non-informative prior tend to show a lower probability of finding the P95 in higher exposure categories in some titles unlike expert judgments. Expert judgements tend to show some similarity in findings with historical data. We recommend the use of expert judgements in occupational risk assessment as prior information before a decision is made on current exposure when historical data are unavailable or scarce. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Occupational Exposures along the Life Cycle of Coal)
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14 pages, 708 KiB  
Article
Prognostic Implication of Exfoliative Airway Pathology in Cancer-Free Coal Workers’ Pneumoconiosis
by Uiju Cho, Tae-Eun Kim, Chan Kwon Park, Hyoung-Kyu Yoon, Young Jo Sa, Hyo-Lim Kim and Tae-Jung Kim
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19(22), 14975; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph192214975 - 14 Nov 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1398
Abstract
Background: The purpose of this study is to see if exfoliative pulmonary airway pathology in cancer-free coal workers’ pneumoconiosis (CWP) can be used as a biomarker for predicting pulmonary morbidity. Methods: We investigated persistent metaplastic changes in bronchoscopic washing cytology and differential cell [...] Read more.
Background: The purpose of this study is to see if exfoliative pulmonary airway pathology in cancer-free coal workers’ pneumoconiosis (CWP) can be used as a biomarker for predicting pulmonary morbidity. Methods: We investigated persistent metaplastic changes in bronchoscopic washing cytology and differential cell counts in bronchoalveolar lavages (BAL) in 97 miners with CWP and 80 miners without CWP as the control. Clinicopathological parameters were examined including pulmonary function tests and the presence of progressive massive fibrosis. Results: When compared to the control group, severe alveolitis, severe goblet cell hyperplasia (GCH), severe hyperplastic epithelial change, and severe squamous metaplasia were the distinguishing biomarkers in CWP. Multivariate analysis revealed that severe alveolitis and severe GCH, along with miner duration and current smoker, were independent predictors of pulmonary mortality. The survival analysis revealed a significantly different survival rate between the three groups: no evidence of severe alveolitis and severe GCH, presence of severe alveolitis or severe GCH but not both, and both severe alveolitis and severe GCH. Conclusions: The severities of alveolitis and goblet cell hyperplasia in the bronchoscopic study are independent prognostic factors for CWP. A pathologic grading system based on these two parameters could be used in the stratification and clinical management of CWP patients. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Occupational Exposures along the Life Cycle of Coal)
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