Incidence of Immunological Occupational Asthma in 2015–2022 by Occupation: Macedonian Experience

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Immunologic occupational asthma (OA), a more prevalent OA type than non-immunologic OA, became an important public health problem in the last decades worldwide. AIM: To present the distribution of new diagnosed cases of immunologic OA in the RN Macedonia in the period 2015–2022 by occupation. METHODS: Immunologic OA was diagnosed by the serial measurement of peak expiratory flow rate (PEFR) at and away from work or by combination of serial PEFR measurement at and away from work and non-specific bronchial provocation at and away from work in workers with diagnosed asthma  and work-relatedness of the symptoms. Sensitization to common inhalant and occupational allergens was evaluated by skin prick test. RESULTS: The annual incidence rate of the diagnosed immunologic OA in this period varied from 1.9 / 100,000 working population in 2015–2.6 / 100,000 in 2022 with a drop in 2020 and 2021, i.e. in the period of COVID-19 pandemic (0.6 and 0.5, respectively). Cleaning, bakery, cleaning, textile manufacture, wood industry, agriculture, and metal-parts manufacture were the most important occupations for the development of immunologic OA. More than a half of the new diagnosed immunologic OA cases were atopics. CONCLUSION: Our findings indicated the occupations with the highest incidence of immunologic OA that could enable targeting of preventive measures and activities to reduce the occurrence of immunologic OA as well as its adverse health outcomes.