Authors: Catherine Vanchiere, Rithika Thirumal, Aditya D Hendrani, Parinita Dherange, Angela Bennett, NACHIKET MADHAV APTE, Runhua Shi, Denise L Smith, Paari Dominic
Published: 2020-11-12
DOI: 10.1161/circ.142.suppl_3.17223
Source: Full article
Air pollution and particulate matter (PM) contribute to respiratory and cardiovascular disease over both chronic and acute exposure periods. Firefighters (FF) are a unique population which experiences these exposures, and likewise has a high risk of cardiovascular disease and death. The mechanisms by which air pollution and PM are proposed to cause disease are also known to contribute to development of arrhythmia, in particular atrial fibrillation (AF). The management of AF in FF is particularly challenging because the high likelihood of physical injury on the job makes anticoagulation more risky. In light of this unique challenge, we were interested in the risk of AF development in FF, and hypothesized that FF have an increased risk of AF. We distributed an electronic survey to FF via representative organizations to collect self-reported demographic, occupational, and clinical data. Multivariate logistic regression was used to assess the odds of having AF with participants stratified by the number of fires fought per year (≤ 10 vs ≥11). 11,965 firefighters completed the survey, of whom 93.53% were male and 96.31% were 65 years of age or younger. FF who fought ≥11 fires/year had a significantly higher lifetime prevalence of AF compared to FF who fought ≤10 fires/year (4.71% vs. 2.70%,