[Asbestos in the National Navy: Employment-exposure matrix]

Abstract

Introduction: The odd risk ratio for an asbestos-related disease is 6.9 for National Defense personnel and 94% of the victims who are compensated belong to the French Navy. While employment-exposure matrices exist for the civilian environment, none are available to the military. Our work consists of the creation of the first employment-exposure matrix in the French Navy, in order to optimize post-occupational medical surveillance.

Method: We conducted a bibliographic search for asbestos in naval repair, naval embarking and foreign navies. From databases such as Medline, Pubmed, we used the following keywords "Navy", "Asbestos", "Shypyard" and "Military" and we have extended ourselves to the registers of existing theses on the subject.

Results: Epidemiological and bibliographic data confirm the increased risk in the French Navy. Three variables are important in the proposal of this employment-exposure matrix: employment, year of arming the ship and duration of embarkation. There is a major risk for personnel whose work is in direct contact with asbestos, in particular machine personnel, irrespective of their duration of exposure. For embarked personnel who do not have direct contact with asbestos in their jobs, the increase in risk depends essentially on the ship's year of arming and the presence of asbestos, whether or not on board, as well as the duration of exposure of seafarers.

Conclusion: These results allow us to recommend a classification of the risk in accordance with the recommendations of the French Health Authority and to propose an adequate post-professional follow-up for the personnel of the Navy.

Keywords: Amiante; Asbestos; Dépistage; Exposition professionnelle; Marine nationale; Military personnel; Navy; Occupational exposure; Personnel militaire; Post-professional follow-up; Screening; Suivi post-exposition ou post-professionnel.