Mortality Patterns Among Uranium Enrichment Workers at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant Piketon, Ohio. Final Report.

摘要

In 1992, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) received a Congressional request to conduct an update study of mortality at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Piketon, Ohio. The plant enriches uranium by increasing the proportion of the uranium-235 isotope (235U) using a gaseous diffusion process. This report presents the methods and findings of the study. Specifically, this report addresses: (1) the use of available employment records to assemble a cohort of gaseous diffusion workers; (2) the use of existing health physics and industrial hygiene data to reconstruct past occupational exposures to selected physical and chemical agents; (3) a survey of electromagnetic field exposures to the contemporary workforce; (4) the overall mortality experience of the workers compared to that of the general population; (5) the cause-specific mortality experience of the workers by degree of occupational exposures using: (1) individually measured alpha count activity in urine (resulting from exposure to soluble uranium), (2) personal dosimetry for exposure to external (gamma and X ray) ionizing radiation, and (3) estimated historical occupational exposures to chemical compounds of uranium, nickel, and fluorine.