OBJECTIVEAnalyzed associations among the incidence of coal workers' pneumoconiosis from 2003 to 2008, jobs, exposure years and cumulative total dust exposure levels (CTE) and found the current characteristics of the mine incidence of pneumoconiosis disease.

METHODScollected the health care information of the new diagnosed pneumoconiosis of underground mine workers from 2003 to 2008 and the dust monitoring data of underground mine from 1949 and estimated the personnel cumulative total dust exposure levels (CTE); analyzed the incidence features of the new diagnosed pneumoconiosis.

RESULTSThe rates of health surveillance of workers were gradually improved from 2003 to 2008 and 296 new coal workers pneumoconiosis were diagnosed. The total incidence was 0.57%, and the average annual rate was 0.32%. Among the new diagnosed cases, phase I accounted for 90.5% and the 87.2% from coal mine drillers. The shortest exposure period was 3 years and the longest was 38 years, and the cumulative total dose of dust was varied between 86.1 and 4926 mg/m(3) per year. The total dust accumulated limited dose was calculated by the percentile method to prevent 99% of miners from pneumoconiosis, which was 120.6 mg/m(3) per year, so we suggested that the exposure years should be shorter than 13 years under the current working conditions.

CONCLUSIONSPreventive coal workers' pneumoconiosis should be focused on mine drillers and their limited exposure years should be within 13 years.