Advisory Committee Chair
Kathleen C Brown
Advisory Committee Members
Erica R Pryor
M Gail Hill
Elizabeth H Maples
Herman R Fourshee Jr
Document Type
Dissertation
Date of Award
2009
Degree Name by School
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) School of Nursing
Abstract
Every year, over 3.5 billion pounds of industrial toxins and one to two billions pounds of environmental toxins are deliberately released into the environment. Although exposures have been shown to have an adverse effect on the health of the individuals, the effect of these exposures on the self-reported health status of individuals who have been environmentally and occupationally exposed to these toxins is still unclear. The purposes of this study were to: 1) identify the best subset of predictors of self-reported health status in current/former farmers and manufacturing workers from the set of age, sex, race, blood pressure, cholesterol measures, body mass index (BMI), and job exposure history; and 2) test whether adding environmental exposure to the model increases predictive ability. A non-experimental, correlational design was used in this study. Data were obtained from the Anniston Community Health Survey completed in 2007. A random sample of 707 individuals residing in a community with known exposure to polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and occupational exposures were selected for this study. These individuals were either current or former farmers or manufacturing workers. Over one-third (34.1%) of the sample reported fair general health status while 13.4% reported poor health status. The most frequently reported occupational exposure iii was exposure to solvents, followed by exposure to lead, boron, mercury, cadmium, and lastly, electrical transformers. The best set of predictor variables for the physical component summary of self-reported health status for all participants was psychological well-being, age, body mass index, and gender. For the mental component summary of self-reported health status, the best predictors were psychological well-being, age, and race. Environmental exposure was significantly negatively correlated with physical and mental component scores. However, when added to both models, the predictive power was not increased. Future studies should examine self-reported health status over time among groups reporting environmental exposure.
Recommended Citation
Shelton, Christie, "Predictors of Self-Reported Health Status in Occupationally and Environmentally Exposed Individuals" (2009). All ETDs from UAB. 217.
https://digitalcommons.library.uab.edu/etd-collection/217