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Asbestos Exposure - Jobsites, Occupations, and Other Risks

Jobsites

Although statistics have shown a growing number of individuals who have never worked with asbestos are suffering with asbestos-related illness, most documented cases of such diseases are caused by occupational exposure. This is due to the likeliness of repeated exposure, which occurs through standard operations in a variety of industries and jobsites.

Naturally, jobsites such as asbestos mines, processing plants, and manufacturing plants where asbestos products were made have a legacy of high occupational exposure. But many other jobsites, such as oil refineries, power plants, and chemical plants, share a history of asbestos exposure as well.

Occupations

Certain occupations also carry an elevated risk of asbestos exposure. Because asbestos was used in a wide variety of both industrial and domestic products, many occupations came in contact with the toxic substance. For example, since asbestos was integrated into so many plumbing and electrical materials, both plumbers and electricians have an increased risk of contracting asbestos-related disease.

Firefighters also fall under this category because exposure can occur while working around older asbestos-contaminated homes. Many other occupations share a history of asbestos exposure as well, such as construction and railroad workers, auto mechanics, and machinists.

Asbestos & the Armed Forces

Asbestos products were widely used by every branch of the U.S. Armed Forces, mainly for insulation purposes in buildings, aircraft, and vehicles. But no other division of the Armed Forces utilized asbestos quite like the Navy, which found hundreds of uses for asbestos materials in its vessels and shipyards from the 1930s through the mid-1970s.

The need to supply World War II efforts caused a spike in demand, which led to increased production among the nation's shipyards. Over the decades, thousands of shipyard workers and Navy veterans who were stationed aboard the contaminated vessels were heavily exposed to asbestos, often in small places with little to no ventilation. For these reasons, veterans and shipyard workers have an elevated risk of developing an asbestos-related disease.

Other Accounts of Exposure

While most accounts of asbestos exposure occur in an occupational setting, accidental exposure is another way people have come in contact with this caustic substance. For example, the World Trade Center attacks that took place on September 11, 2001 set an estimated 2,000 tons of asbestos into the air in the form of a fine dust.

According to a 2006 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report, an alarming 62 percent of those caught in the dust cloud are coping with respiratory problems. Another incidence of accidental exposure was caused by the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history-Hurricane Katrina. The hurricane damaged thousands of older asbestos-contaminated homes, many of which remain standing today. Nearly three years after the storm hit, the area is still struggling to restore infrastructure and prevent asbestos exposure from the remaining asbestos-laden structures.

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