{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,6,9]],"date-time":"2026-06-09T23:52:07Z","timestamp":1781049127714,"version":"3.54.1"},"reference-count":27,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"23","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2021,12,3]],"date-time":"2021-12-03T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1638489600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"Korea Environment Industry &amp; Technology Institute (KEITI) through The Chemical Accident Prevention Technology Development Project funded by Korea Ministry of Environment (MOE)","award":["2017001970001"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["2017001970001"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["IJERPH"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Few studies have examined rheumatoid arthritis (RA) risk and severity in Korean workers exposed to silica. We compared the hospitalization risk of RA between silica-exposed workers and the general Korean population. The study cohort consisted of male workers exposed to silica who had undergone at least one silica-associated special medical examination between 1 January 2000 and 31 December 2004 (N = 149,948). The data were from the Korea Occupation Safety and Health Agency. RA morbidity based on hospital admission records was estimated from 2000 to 2005 using the Korea National Health Insurance Service claims data. The standardized admission ratio (SAR) was calculated by dividing the observed number of admissions in silica-exposed workers by the expected number of admissions in the general reference population. For the sum of \u201cSeropositive rheumatoid arthritis\u201d (M05) and \u201cOther rheumatoid arthritis\u201d (M06), the SAR was higher in the silica-exposed group (1.34, 95% CI 1.08\u20131.64). For M05, workers with &lt;10 years of silica exposure had a significantly higher SAR (2.54, 95% CI 1.10\u20135.01) than the general population. More silica-exposed workers without a diagnosis of pneumoconiosis were hospitalized for RA than the general population. Our analysis reaffirms the link between silica exposure and RA and suggests that the severity of RA is increased by silica. Further studies of silica-exposed workers with longer follow-up are needed.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/ijerph182312776","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2021,12,5]],"date-time":"2021-12-05T21:01:45Z","timestamp":1638738105000},"page":"12776","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":12,"title":["Rheumatoid Arthritis in Silica-Exposed Workers"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"18","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-1508-0608","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Young-Sun","family":"Min","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Soonchunhyang University Cheonan Hospital, Cheonan-si 31151, Korea"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Min-Gi","family":"Kim","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Dankook University Cheonan Hospital, 201 Manghyang-ro, Dongnam-gu, Cheonan-si 31116, Korea"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Yeon-Soon","family":"Ahn","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Preventive Medicine and Genomic Cohort Institute, Yonsei University Wonju College of Medicine, Wonju-si 26426, Korea"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2021,12,3]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"3","DOI":"10.1016\/j.berh.2017.08.003","article-title":"Genetic and environmental risk factors for rheumatoid arthritis","volume":"31","author":"Deane","year":"2017","journal-title":"Best Pract. 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