Abstract (EN)

Background: The presence of new sources ofoccupational exposure to crystalline silica has contributed to an increased incidence of silicosis. Spain wasone of the first countries to identify new occupationalrisk sectors such as quartz agglomerates. The objectiveof this work was to describe the incidence of silicosisin Spain between 1990 and 2019 and to determine themain occupational sectors affected.Methods: Data on occupational disease caseswere obtained from the Spanish Ministry of Inclusion,Social Security and Migration. Disease rates werecomputed by occupational sector, and analyses wereconducted of their time course and their geographical,sex and age distributions.Results: Data were available on 4,418 cases(96.1% male). The mean annual number of cases was1,223% higher between 2015 and 2019 than between1990 and 1995. By occupational sector, 50% werein “Fabrication of other mineral non-metallic products”, 18.5% in “Extraction of non-metallic nonenergetic minerals”, 10.2% in “Construction”, 6.1%in “Metallurgy”, 3.1% in “Coal mining” and 12% inother sectors. Galicia registered the greatest number ofcases (32.9%), followed by Castile and León (14%),Andalusia (10%) and the Basque Country (9.1%). Thegreatest increase in its incidence was in coal mining,possibly due to the dismantling of this sector and drastic reduction in the workforce.Conclusions: Our results suggest the importance of the manufacturing, machining and installation ofquartz agglomerates in the re-emergence of silicosisin Spain.