Mortality among automobile assembly workers. I. Spray painters.

The primary objective of this study was to determine whether there was an increased mortality, especially with respect to cancer of the lung, among spray painters in the automobile manufacturing industry. The study was carried out at ten assembly plants from five participating companies and utilized both proportionate mortality ratio (PMR) and case-control analyses. Among workers with spray-painting experience, there were no statistically significant PMRs for lung cancer, either for all companies combined or for any company individually. In addition, the case-control analyses did not demonstrate a statistically significant excess risk for lung cancer mortality, adjusting for length of employment and duration in spray painting. The case-control analysis was large enough to detect approximately a two-fold increase if, in fact, an increase that large actually existed.