OCCUPATIONAL RISK FACTORS FOR DEMENTIA IN A SAMPLE OF OLDER ADULTS COVERED BY THE IRANIAN OIL INDUSTRIES’ HEALTH CENTERS, 2018

Here is a new case of dementia in the world every three seconds. It kills more people in the US than breast cancer and prostate cancer combined, while it is the number one killer in England and Wales. The current cost of the disease is about a trillion US dollars a year, and that is forecast to double by 2030.Object: The aim of this study was to determine the probable occupational and environmental risk factors of dementia among the retirees of Iranian oil industries. Methods: A case-control study of 551 randomly selected older adults, all aged 60 and above including 180 demented and 371 nondemented retirees, pair matched for education and gender, was conducted. We evaluated the adjusted associations between dementia risk and the probable occupational and environmental variables through multiple logistic regression.Results: A history of exposure to air pollution (Adjusted OR=2.00, 95%CI= 1.00-7.00), head injuries (Adjusted OR=2.00, 95%CI= 1.00-6.00) and more than 20 years of work in the operational fields (Adjusted OR=5.00, 95%CI= 3.00-8.00) was significantly correlated with an increased risk of dementia. We could not find any significant associations between dementia risk and exposure to fossil fuels, solvents, noise pollution and or a combination of occupational risk factors. Conclusion: The results propose that long-term exposure to field occupational risk factors is likely to increase the risk of dementia. We suggest simultaneous serial oil industries’ particulate evaluations with proper cognitive assessments for the pre-retired staff