The peculiarities of branch and occupational distribution of diseases among workers of the mining and metallurgical industry have been determined for correct assessment of risk development of pneumoconiosis (PC) associated with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and for development the effective methods of treatment and prevention.
It is shown that at the present stage the prevalence of PC associated with COPD dominates among workers of underground iron ore mining, exceeding the similar data for open mining and metallurgical production, respectively, 3.2 and 9.6 times. The absolute risk of the development of this lung pathology is the highest among workers of the underground iron ore mining: drillers, drifters, engineers and technical workers (ETW), timbermen, slanting face miners, equipment repair technicians (from 0.55 to 0.176), at an open iron ore mining the highest risk is in drivers of excavators and locomotives, equipment repair technicians, crushers, electric gas welders and electric locksmiths (from 0.011 to 0.066), in metallurgical industry correspondingly in agglomerate workers, smelters, refractory workers, stumpers, steelmakers, control panels operators and sandblasting workers (from 0.011 to 0.033). Among workers of the mining and metallurgy industry the professions of driller, ETW, timberman, electric locksmith and equipment repair technician are most exposed to the development of PC associated with COPD (from 83.3 to 89.0%), with the highest relative risk of disease from 1.32 to 1.62 and with the etiological share of the influence of these occupations on its occurrence (from 23.1 to 38.3%). The obtained results allow to evaluate objectively the peculiarities of the professional and branch distribution of the PC associated with COPD at workers of the mining and metallurgical industry for objective determinating the risk of these diseases, and further developing the effective methods for diagnostics, treatment and prevention.