Background: Environmental radon has been examined as a risk factor for neurodegenerative diseases in a small number of previous studies, but the findings have been inconsistent. This study aims to investigate the association between occupational radon exposure and neurodegenerative disease in a cohort of male miners with work experience in multiple ore types in Ontario, Canada.
Methods: Radon exposure (1915-1988) was assessed using two job-exposure matrices (JEM) constructed from using historical records for 34,536 Ontario male miners. Neurodegenerative outcomes were ascertained between 1992 and 2018. Poisson regression models were used to estimate incidence rate ratios (RR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) between cumulative radon exposure in working level months (WLM) and each neurodegenerative outcome.
Results: Levels of cumulative radon exposure showed variability among cohort members with a mean of 7.5 WLM (standard deviation 24.4). Miners in uranium mines or underground jobs had higher levels and more variability in exposure than workers in non-uranium work or surface jobs. Compared to the reference group (radon < 1 WLM), increased rates of Alzheimer's (RR 1.23, 95% CI 1.05-1.45) and Parkinson's disease (RR 1.43, 95% CI 1.08-1.89) were observed among workers with >1-5 WLM and >5-10 WLM, respectively, but not among higher exposed workers (>10 WLM).
Conclusion: This study did not observe a positive monotonic dose-response relationship between cumulative radon exposure and Alzheimer's or Parkinson's disease in Ontario mining workers. There was no association observed with motor neuron disease.
Keywords: brain; metal mining; neurodegeneration; occupational epidemiology; radon daughters; radon progeny.
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