Trucking companies and Teamsters are collaborating in a major study to measure the health effects of long-term exposure to diesel exhaust.

The five-year study, to be conducted by scientists at Harvard University, will sample environmental conditions at trucking terminals across the country and track the work history of more than 55,000 Teamsters since 1985. The National Cancer Institute awarded $4.77 million to pay for the work.
According to the researchers and knowledgeable industry observers, the study will fill an important gap in scientific understanding of the effect of diesel exhaust.
"This study will provide orders of magnitude more information than past studies," said Thomas J. Smith, director of the Industrial Hygiene Program at the Harvard School of Public Health.
What’s unique about the study, besides its scope, is the cooperation between unionized trucking companies and the Teamsters union to make it happen.
At a press briefing in Washington, D.C., yesterday, Timothy Lynch, president and CEO of the Motor Freight Carrier Assn., said that four members of his trade group will participate: ABF Freight System, Consolidated Freightways, Roadway Express and Yellow Freight System.
On the Teamsters side, the union is opening 15 years worth of records from the Central States and Western States pension funds.
In the study, researchers will measure exhaust components, such as particulates, in 100 rural and urban terminals. The air in truck cabs will be monitored with portable devices that drivers hook onto their belts.
This information will be weighed against other possible health risks, such as smoking.
At the same time, the researchers will look at the incidence of deaths caused by lung cancer and other respiratory illnesses among Teamsters since 1985.
By putting this information together, the researchers hope to learn more about the relationship between exposure to exhaust, and workers’ health.
The lead researcher, Eric Garshick, an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, stressed that he does not have a regulatory agenda. He agreed that the Environmental Protection Agency surely will review the study, but said his purpose is to add to the general understanding about the health risks of diesel exhaust.
From the union perspective, said Teamsters spokesman Rob Black, the study will provide information that could affect future labor contracts. Lynch of MFCA agreed, illustrating the point with the example of union-industry collaboration on efforts to clean up forklift exhaust.