| This data file set contains one analytic file generated for a cohort mortality study of men and women employed at the Mound Plant in Ohio by Laurie Wiggs, et al., published in the Journal of Occupational Medicine in 1991. |
| This cohort mortality study of Mound workers was conducted to test the association between mortality and exposure to radiation. The published analyses focused on 3,229 white males monitored for exposure to external radiation, who were already employed as of January 1, 1947, or who were subsequently hired before 1979. A strong healthy worker effect was noted among white males who were monitored for external radiation [all causes of death SMR = 79, 95% CI = 70-88]. No cause of death was significantly elevated. When mortality for workers who received external, cumulative whole-body doses that were at least 10 mSv was compared with mortality among non-exposed workers, the rate ratios were not significantly elevated for any cause of death. However, a dose-response analysis was conducted considering three categories: non-exposed, or less than 10 mSv cumulative whole-body dose exposed; 10-49.9 mSv; and exposed, greater than or equal to 50 mSv. This analysis reported a statistically significant relationship between external dose and mortality from all leukemias. This result was based on the identification of two deaths in the highest exposure category, one of which was a chronic lymphatic leukemia, a type of leukemia which has not been considered a radiogenic cancer. |
| The analytic file, MDEXTA02_d1, contains 6,904 records representing male and female workers first hired from the beginning of the Dayton Project (about 1943) through part of 1979. During the course of the analyses, 20 of these records were found to be duplicates of other records in the file. The analyses in the published paper did not include these 20 duplicate records (N = 6,884). After the paper was published, two additional records were found to be either duplicative or belonging to a person who never worked at Mound. These 22 records have blank identification numbers. Monitoring data in the file include estimated first date of monitoring, cumulative whole-body dose through the end of 1979, and dates on which the cumulative whole-body dose reached 10, 50, or 100 mSv. Demographic variables included in the file are date of birth, date of death, sex, race, education level, date of hire, and duration of employment. |
| Vital status ascertainment was 98.1% complete for the 4,182 white males through January 1, 1980. Death certificates were obtained for 98.8% (586) of the 593 deaths that occurred between 1947 and 1979, inclusive. Causes of death were coded as ICDA8. |
| Major operations conducted at Mound included the separation, chemistry, and metallurgy of polonium-210 and processing of plutonium-238 for heat sources. Later, small research projects involved other isotopes, including radium and thorium. Personal external monitoring data are available at Mound for years after 1947. |
