Details - Public Health Image Library(PHIL)

ID#:

9545

Caption:

Wearing head-lamps to light their way through this coal mine, this historic image, provided by the Center for Disease Control's (CDC), National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), depicted three miners as they were strategizing their next move. Note that none of the men was wearing a protective filtered breathing device, which is now protocol under such circumstances. Mining coal, especially under circumstances like these close quarters, facilitated coal dust inhalation, thereby, predisposing miners to the long-term negative health effects of this profession including black lung disease, or coal-workers’ pneumoconiosis (CWP). Today, the Federal government’s stringent regulations on the level of coal dust permissible in the air of a coalmine, and the requisite use of filtered breathing devices, has dramatically lowered the number of cases of black lung disease.

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Content Provider(s):

CDC/ Barbara Jenkins, NIOSH

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Categories:

CDC Organization