Occupational exposure to solvents and metals and Parkinson’s disease

Abstract

The etiology of PD is not clearly understood, but several genetic and environmental factors, including exposure to metals and solvents, have been implicated.1 In this study, we used pension fund and occupational records from a major UK engineering company to investigate whether occupational exposure to metals or solvents is associated with an increased risk of death from or with Parkinson’s disease. Cases were obtained by searching the Rolls-Royce PLC national pension fund archive of 20,256 death certificates from employees of five UK manufacturing locations who died between 1967 and 1997, identifying all with any mention of Parkinson’s disease on any part of the certificate. We then manually searched personnel archives at the location of work for the occupational record detailing the duration and title of all jobs held by each case. Controls were drawn from a previously ascertained random sample of 621 deaths (599 men) from the database for whom full occupational records had been traced and coded,2 excluding any who qualified as cases. We also excluded 199 controls …