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Posisjon  1

Does nickel exposure influence pregnancy outcome among female nickel workers on the Kola peninsula?

In 1994, Chashchin et al reported possible elevated risks of spontaneous abortions and giving birth to newborns with congenital malformations among female nickel-refinery workers in the Kola Peninsula. Epidemiological studies of such health effects have not been feasible in the Western world, because very few women have been employed in the nickel industry there. In the USSR and Russia, however, the situation has been different. In 1985, 36 percent of the 10 766 exposed, or potentially exposed, workers at the nickel refinery in Mončegorsk were women. Ten years later women still comprised 31 percent.

Dr. Chashchin’s report was the only published paper that had addressed the reproductive health impact of nickel exposure, but the study had some methodological shortcomings. The findings, however, prompted further investigation, and a critical evaluation of the pertinent data sources revealed that a comprehensive epidemiological study was technically feasible, and in 1995 the project started. The aim of the study was to investigate whether occupationally-exposed, female nickel-refinery workers were at elevated risk of adverse pregnancy and/or delivery outcomes. To facilitate this aim, access to the different data sources for reproductive and developmental outcomes was needed, as well as information about occupation and exposure during pregnancy. Birth-related information was collected from all the three towns in the Kola Peninsula with a nickel refinery (Nikel, Zapoljarnyj and Mončegorsk), which also provided the basis for the above mentioned report by Chashschin et al. However, the later data collection was restricted to Mončegorsk – the largest of the three nickel-refining centres. Extensive information was registered about each delivery, pregnancy and delivering woman, and since the registration covered all the deliveries in Mončegorsk the project initiators soon realised that it was a comprehensive birth registry that was taking form. The registry was, however, called Kolskij registr rodov (the Kola Birth Registry (KBR)) due to the initial scope, and due the thoughts about later expansion to other hospital centres in the Kola Peninsula. This work is in progress.