03/16/2022
By Kevin Schott

The Zuckerberg College of Health Sciences, Department of Public Health, invites you to attend a doctoral dissertation defense by Kevin Schott on “The Effect of Occupational Exposure to Heavy Lifting or Vibration on Retinal Detachment.”

Candidate Name: Kevin Schott
Defense Date: Friday, April 1, 2022
Time: noon to 2 p.m.
Location: Via Zoom meeting

Advisor: David Kriebel, Professor Emeritus, Department of Public Health, University of Massachusetts Lowell

Committee Members

  • Susan R Sama, Research Professor, Department of Public Health, University of Massachusetts Lowell
  • Bryan O. Buchholz, Chair, Professor, Franscis College of Engineering, University of Massachusetts Lowell

Brief Abstract:
Retinal detachment (RD) is a major cause of visual impairment that can lead to blindness if not treated promptly. Several past studies have reported that heavy lifting may lead to increased rates of RD, however there is no clear consensus in the literature. Because construction work often involves heavy physical labor, to further investigate the heavy lifting – RD hypothesis we studied Swedish construction workers who participated in an industry-wide health and safety. We linked individual occupation codes to a job exposure matrix (JEM), assigning intensity of exposure to heavy lifting for workers engaged in the construction occupations from 1987 to 1993. A national registry was used to identify cases of RD that occurred from 1987 through 2012. After adjusting for age, the average-intensity of exposure to heavy lifting provided by the JEM was not positively associated with RD risk. In contrast, cumulative exposure to heavy lifting was positively associated with age-adjusted RD risk both in the full cohort (incident rate ratio IRR: 1.60, 95% confidence interval CI: [1.34-1.92]) and a younger subgroup (IRR: 1.75, CI: [1.15-2.65]).

An association between vibration and retinal detachment has been considered in case studies, however we are not aware of any epidemiologic studies investigating this hypothesis. Using the same group of construction workers, we investigated the vibration – RD hypothesis. Average exposure to vibration was not associated with an increased risk of RD using any of three vibration JEMs. The results from this initial investigation do not provide evidence of an association between occupation exposure to vibration and RD risk. A major limitation of this study however was that occupations with heavy lifting tended also to have exposure to vibration, and so it was difficult to investigate the latter independently from the former.