P-Phenylenediamine (PPD) is a common component of hair dye, which can cause skin contact allergy and asthma with impaired pulmonary function. However, the adverse effects of occupational exposure to different dose PPD was rarely mentioned. We recruited 124 workers from a hair dye factory to explore the association of occupational PPD exposure on pulmonary function, pruritus and health related quality of life (HRQL). We categorized exposure to PPD into 3 levels: lower exposure group (< 0.00001 mg/m³); middle exposure group (0.00001–0.00033 mg/m³); higher exposure group (0.00033–0.047 mg/m³). The HRQL and subjective pruritus of the workers were assessed by the short form 36 health survey (SF-36) and Visual analogue scale (VAS) of pruritus, respectively. In the high PPD-exposed group, the percentage of FEV1 (FEV1%) was lower in higher exposure group compared with lower exposure group. The FEV1/FVC was also lower in comparison to the higher exposure and middle exposure groups (p < 0.05). PPD levels were negatively correlated with vitality and mental health (p < 0.01). The structural equation model showed the positive effects of PPD on VAS level (β = 0.213,p < 0.001), and indicated partly negtive effects of PPD on total score of SF-36 (β = − 0.465,p = 0.002), respectively. Our results indicate that occupational exposure to PPD might be associated with pulmonary function impairment, poor HRQL, and subjective pruritus of the workers.

Background: Health literacy (HL) is associated with health outcomes, but little is known about the occupational HL (OHL) for port employees and its link to the length of service and job category. Method: A cross-sectional survey was conducted on 3492 port employees from the Occupational Health Survey for Port Employees project, and a special questionnaire was utilized to measure the OHL status. Binary and ordinal logistic regressions were used to estimate the association. Result: Among the participants, 72.90% had sufficient OHL with a mean score (standard deviation) of 53.10 (7.26). Binary logistic regression results indicated that the association between length of service (33–40 years group Adjusted OR = 1.11; 41–49 years group Adjusted OR = 1.14; ≥50 years group Adjusted OR = 1.19) and job category (longshoremen Adjusted OR = 0.90; driver Adjusted OR = 0.91) with OHL were statistically significant. Ordinal logistic regression results indicated that, for OHL, Adjusted OR was increased in different lengths of service level (33–40 years group, Adjusted OR = 1.50; 41–49 years group, Adjusted OR = 1.75; ≥50 years group, Adjusted OR = 2.19), and the Adjusted OR of skilled workers was 1.60. Conclusion: Most port participants had sufficient OHL, and the length of service and job category could affect OHL. The effect of the length of service may be more obvious; the length of service can promote the improvement of OHL continuously.

Previously, we had cross-sectionally explored the characteristics of T cell receptor (TCR) repertoires from occupational medicamentosa-like dermatitis due to trichloroethylene (OMDT) patients, now we further analyzed the dynamic features of OMDT TCR repertoires. Peripheral blood TCR β-chain complementarity-determining region 3 (CDR3) genes were detected with the high throughput sequencing in 24 OMDT cases in their acute, chronic and recovery stages, respectively, and in 24 trichloroethylene-exposed healthy controls. The TCR repertoire diversity, TRBV/TRBD/TRBJ gene usage and combination, frequencies of CDR3 nucleotide (nt) and amino acid (aa) sequences in the cases in different stages and in the controls were analyzed. TRBV6-4 and TRBV7-9 frequencies significantly differed between the cases and controls (both P < 6.1 × 10^–4). TRBV6-4 combination with TRBJ2-1, TRBJ2-2, TRBJ2-3, and TRBJ2-6, and TRBV7-9 combination with TRBJ2-1 were associated with the stage by OMDT severity (all P < 0.001). Ten CDR3-nt and 7 CDR3-aa sequences in TRBV7-9-TRBJ2-1 combination and 1 CDR3-nt and 1 CDR3-aa sequences in TRBV6-4-TRBJ2-1 combination were identified as associated with the severity of OMDT (all P < 0.001). We revealed further how TCR repertoires vary with the severity in the development of OMDT, and severity-related TCRs may provide important therapeutic targets for OMDT in clinical practice.

Background: Genome-wide sequencing may extensively identify potential pathogenic variants, which helps to understand mechanisms of tumorigenesis, but such study has not been reported in benzene-induced leukemia (BIL). Methods: We recruited 10 BIL patients and conducted the whole-exome sequencing on their peripheral blood samples. The obtained sequencing data were screened for potential pathogenic and novel variants, then the variants-located genes were clustered to identify cancer-related pathways. Shared or recurrent variants among the BIL cases were also identified and evaluated for their potential functional impact. Results: We identified 48,802 variants in exons in total, 97.3% of which were single nucleotide variants. After filtering out variants with minor allele frequency ≥ 1%, we obtained 8667 potentially pathogenic variants, of which 174 were shared by all the BIL cases. The identified variants located in genes that could be significantly enriched into certain cancer-related pathways such as PI3K-AKT signaling pathway and Ras signaling pathway. We also identified 1010 novel variants with no record in the Genome Aggregation Database and in dbSNP, and one of them was shared by 90% cases. The recurrent and novel variant caused a missense mutation in SESN3. Conclusions: We examined variations of the whole exome in BIL patients for the first time. The commonly shared variants implied a relation with BIL, and the recurrent and novel variant might be specifically related to BIL. The related variants may help unravel the carcinogenic mechanisms of BIL.

Background Port employees is a huge occupational group in industrial economy but the occupational health problem does not receive enough attention and the relative data is still deficient. Hence, the aim of the study was to survey the occupational health condition for port employees and to construct a relative dataset. Method A cross-sectional study was implemented among the population in a Shenzhen port, they were required to undergo occupational physical examination and questionnaires to learn about physical condition and other information. Description analysis were used to describe the data, and missing value analysis and Cronbach’s alpha coefficient were utilized to evaluated the data quality. And management system based on Shiny was constructed to manage and analyze the dataset. Result A total of 5245 participants involved in this study, 3211 of them received occupational physical examinations, 3946 participants received the questionnaire, and 1912 received the both. Quality analysis suggested that the total missing rate of these three datasets were 10.76%, 0% and 4.78%, respectively. And the total Cronbach’s alpha confidence of Effort-Reward Imbalance Questionnaire and National Health Literacy Monitoring Questionnaire was 0.808. Furthermore, a dataset management system with preview overview, selection, output and summary functions was constructed. Conclusion Occupational Health Survey for Port Employees is a reliable survey and it’s system can be used to manage and analyze the dataset, however, further optimization and improvement are still required.