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Estimating the mortality burden of large scale mining projects-Evidence from a prospective mortality surveillance study in Tanzania

Lyatuu, Isaac ; Winkler, Mirko S ; Loss, Georg ; Farnham, Andrea ; Dietler, Dominik LU orcid and Fink, Günther (2021) In PLOS global public health 1(10). p.1-14
Abstract

We set up a mortality surveillance system around two of the largest gold mines in Tanzania between February 2019 and February 2020 to estimate the mortality impact of gold mines. Death circumstances were collected using a standardized verbal autopsy tool, and causes of death were assigned using the InSilicoVA algorithm. We compared cause-specific mortality fractions in mining communities with other subnational data as well as national estimates. Within mining communities, we estimated mortality risks of mining workers relative to other not working at mines. At the population level, mining communities had higher road-traffic injuries (RTI) (risk difference (RD): 3.1%, Confidence Interval (CI): 0.4%, 5.9%) and non-HIV infectious disease... (More)

We set up a mortality surveillance system around two of the largest gold mines in Tanzania between February 2019 and February 2020 to estimate the mortality impact of gold mines. Death circumstances were collected using a standardized verbal autopsy tool, and causes of death were assigned using the InSilicoVA algorithm. We compared cause-specific mortality fractions in mining communities with other subnational data as well as national estimates. Within mining communities, we estimated mortality risks of mining workers relative to other not working at mines. At the population level, mining communities had higher road-traffic injuries (RTI) (risk difference (RD): 3.1%, Confidence Interval (CI): 0.4%, 5.9%) and non-HIV infectious disease mortality (RD: 5.6%, CI: 0.8%, 10.3%), but lower burden of HIV mortality (RD: -5.9%, CI: -10.2%, -1.6%). Relative to non-miners living in the same communities, mining workers had over twice the mortality risk (relative risk (RR): 2.09, CI: 1.57, 2.79), with particularly large increases for death due to RTIs (RR: 14.26, CI: 4.95, 41.10) and other injuries (RR:10.10, CI: 3.40, 30.02). Our results shows that gold mines continue to be associated with a large mortality burden despite major efforts to ensure the safety in mining communities. Given that most of the additional mortality risk appears to be related to injuries programs targeting these specific risks seem most desirable.

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author
; ; ; ; and
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
in
PLOS global public health
volume
1
issue
10
article number
e0000008
pages
1 - 14
publisher
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
external identifiers
  • pmid:36962075
ISSN
2767-3375
DOI
10.1371/journal.pgph.0000008
language
English
LU publication?
no
additional info
Copyright: © 2021 Lyatuu et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
id
60d1d7ea-fc0b-4974-9c4f-9b2957867a87
date added to LUP
2023-10-12 12:18:50
date last changed
2023-10-12 12:52:42
@article{60d1d7ea-fc0b-4974-9c4f-9b2957867a87,
  abstract     = {{<p>We set up a mortality surveillance system around two of the largest gold mines in Tanzania between February 2019 and February 2020 to estimate the mortality impact of gold mines. Death circumstances were collected using a standardized verbal autopsy tool, and causes of death were assigned using the InSilicoVA algorithm. We compared cause-specific mortality fractions in mining communities with other subnational data as well as national estimates. Within mining communities, we estimated mortality risks of mining workers relative to other not working at mines. At the population level, mining communities had higher road-traffic injuries (RTI) (risk difference (RD): 3.1%, Confidence Interval (CI): 0.4%, 5.9%) and non-HIV infectious disease mortality (RD: 5.6%, CI: 0.8%, 10.3%), but lower burden of HIV mortality (RD: -5.9%, CI: -10.2%, -1.6%). Relative to non-miners living in the same communities, mining workers had over twice the mortality risk (relative risk (RR): 2.09, CI: 1.57, 2.79), with particularly large increases for death due to RTIs (RR: 14.26, CI: 4.95, 41.10) and other injuries (RR:10.10, CI: 3.40, 30.02). Our results shows that gold mines continue to be associated with a large mortality burden despite major efforts to ensure the safety in mining communities. Given that most of the additional mortality risk appears to be related to injuries programs targeting these specific risks seem most desirable.</p>}},
  author       = {{Lyatuu, Isaac and Winkler, Mirko S and Loss, Georg and Farnham, Andrea and Dietler, Dominik and Fink, Günther}},
  issn         = {{2767-3375}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  number       = {{10}},
  pages        = {{1--14}},
  publisher    = {{Public Library of Science (PLoS)}},
  series       = {{PLOS global public health}},
  title        = {{Estimating the mortality burden of large scale mining projects-Evidence from a prospective mortality surveillance study in Tanzania}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0000008}},
  doi          = {{10.1371/journal.pgph.0000008}},
  volume       = {{1}},
  year         = {{2021}},
}