All-Cause and Cause-Specific Mortality in a Cohort of WTC-Exposed and Non-WTC-Exposed Firefighters

• Activity Number: 289 - Contributed Poster Presentations: Section on Statistics in Epidemiology
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Tuesday, August 9, 2022 : 10:30 AM to 12:20 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Statistics in Epidemiology
• Author(s): Ankura Singh* and Rachel Anna Zeig-Owens and Madeline Cannon and Mayris P Webber and David J Prezant and Paolo Boffetta and Charles B Hall
• Companies: Fire Department of the City of New York and Montefiore Medical Center and Fire Department of the City of New York and Fire Department of the City of New York and Fire Department of the City of New York and Stony Brook Cancer Center and Albert Einstein College of Medicine
• Keywords: cohort studies; occupational health; mortality

Abstract

Lower mortality rates were observed in World Trade Center (WTC)-exposed workers compared with general populations, but findings may be influenced by the healthy worker effect or access to care. No study has compared mortality in WTC-exposed workers to that in a comparable occupational cohort. We assessed mortality rates in New York City WTC-exposed firefighters vs a comparison cohort of non-WTC-exposed firefighters from Chicago, Philadelphia and San Francisco. Analyses included 10,786 WTC-exposed and 8,813 non-exposed male firefighters. Follow-up began on 9/11/01 and ended at death date or 12/31/16. Poisson regression models estimated relative rates (RR) of all-cause and cause-specific mortality in WTC-exposed vs non-exposed firefighters controlling for age and race. WTC-exposed firefighters had lower rates of mortality from all causes (RR=0.54 95%CI=0.49-0.59), cancer (RR=0.72 95%CI=0.66-0.79), heart disease (RR=0.61 95%CI=0.55-0.68) and respiratory diseases (RR=0.69 95%CI=0.62-0.77) compared to non-WTC-exposed. Reduced mortality in the WTC-exposed cohort may be a result of free routine health monitoring, including cancer screenings, they receive as part of the WTC Health Program.