BMC Pulmonary Medicine is calling for submissions to our Collection on Occupational lung diseases, which pose a significant public health and economic challenge worldwide. In Great Britain alone, occupational lung disease leads to an estimated 12,000 deaths and 400,000 lost working days each year. Many of these are serious diseases which can lead to substantial disability or even death, but they are also avoidable through preventive interventions in the workplace.

In support of United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 3: Good health and wellbeing and 10: Reduced inequalities, BMC Pulmonary Medicine has launched this new Collection on Occupational lung disease to bring together basic and clinical research to develop our understanding of such conditions and open new avenues for risk stratification and therapeutic intervention.

BMC Pulmonary Medicine is inviting submissions to a collection on this subject. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Asthma
• COPDs
• pneumoconioses (e.g. asbestosis, silicosis, Coal workers’ pneumoconiosis)
• respiratory cancers
• diffuse pleural thickening and pleural plaques
• allergic alveolitis and byssinosis

Meet the Guest Editors

Renee Carey: Curtin University, Australia

Dr Renee Carey is a Senior Research Fellow in the School of Population Health at Curtin University in Western Australia. After completing a PhD in Psychology, she worked as a project coordinator on a large-scale epidemiological survey investigating current occupational exposure to carcinogens. Renee has since broadened her research focus to examine various aspects of occupational and cancer epidemiology, including the extent of occupational exposures, the (preventable) burden of disease that might result from these exposures in the future, and the effect of interventions to reduce those exposures and prevent disease. 

Alice Turner: University of Birmingham, UK

Dr Alice Turner is a Professor of Respiratory Medicine at the University of Birmingham. Alice works within a regional UK occupational lung disease center where her research interests are predominantly in clinical aspects of alpha 1 antitrypsin deficiency (AATD) and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Alice has published on occupational risk factors of AATD and supervised doctoral students whose projects examine occupational aspects of lung disease.

Gareth Walters: University of Birmingham, UK

Dr Gareth Walters is a respiratory physician with a specialist interest in work-related airways and interstitial lung diseases. He is clinical lead for the supra-regional NHS Occupational Lung Disease Service at Birmingham Chest Clinic, UK, and an Honorary Senior Clinical Research Fellow at the Institute of Applied Health Research, University of Birmingham where he supervises and carries out research into the causes and impact of these diseases. He is a member of both the Group of Occupational Respiratory Disease Specialists (GORDS) UK and the Industrial Injuries Advisory Council. 

Submission guidelines

This Collection welcomes submission of original Research Articles. Should you wish to submit a different article type, please read our submission guidelines to confirm that type is accepted by the journal. Articles for this Collection should be submitted via our submission system, Snapp. During the submission process you will be asked whether you are submitting to a Collection, please select "Occupational lung disease" from the dropdown menu. 

Articles will undergo the journal’s standard peer-review process and are subject to all of the journal’s standard policies. Articles will be added to the Collection as they are published.

The Guest Editors have no competing interests with the submissions which they handle through the peer review process. The peer review of any submissions for which the Guest Editors have competing interests is handled by another Editorial Board Member who has no competing interests.

Submission Status: Open   |   Submission Deadline: 19 February 2024