Official Site of The State of New Jersey
Inpatient Hospitalizations from or with Pneumoconiosis: Asbestosis, New Jersey, 2000 to 2022
Indicator Report Data View Options
Why Is This Important?
Pneumoconiosis is a class of lung diseases which are usually incurable and may lead to death. Pneumoconioses includes silicosis, asbestosis, coal workers' pneumoconiosis, and other and unspecified pneumoconiosis. Nearly all pneumoconioses are attributable to occupational exposures and millions of workers are at risk. Complications of various pneumoconioses and other conditions associated with exposure to the same dusts that cause pneumoconiosis include respiratory infections (including tuberculosis); chronic bronchitis; emphysema; lung cancer; pleuritis; progressive systematic sclerosis; renal disease and respiratory failure.
Definition
Hospitalizations with pneumoconiosis as any diagnosis for persons 15 years or older. ICD-9 codes: 500-505; ICD-10 codes: J60-J66.
Data Notes
- Data have been age-adjusted to the U.S. 2000 standard population.
- Because pneumoconioses are typically diseases of long latency, current incidence is not likely to be indicative of current exposure. It may be many years before reductions in occupational exposures affect the number of hospitalizations.
Data Sources
- Hospital Discharge Data Collection System (NJDDCS), Health Care Quality and Assessment, New Jersey Department of Health
(https://nj.gov/health/healthcarequality/health-care-professionals/njddcs/) - U.S. Census Bureau
(https://www.census.gov/)
How the Measure is Calculated
Numerator:
Number of inpatient hospital discharges with a diagnosis of asbestosis (ICD-9-CM 501; ICD-10-CM J61)Denominator:
Total number of persons aged 15 years or older in the population.
Data Issues
Missing data in 2022: Three hospitals in Camden and Gloucester Counties submitted their fourth quarter data after the file closure deadline so their data are missing from the 2022 inpatient and emergency department datasets.Overall Discharge Volume in 2020: Hospital claim volume for the 2020 calendar year was markedly lower (19.9%) than for 2019, mostly due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This reduction was seen in both inpatient discharges (8.2% lower claim volume than 2019) and emergency department visits (27.3% lower claim volume than 2019). This was likely the result of hospital care being redirected to address the care for COVID-19 patients while elective surgeries and other outpatient care services were being postponed.
Caveats specific to 2017 data: NJDOH changed its vendor for hospitalization data collection in 2017 resulting in data loss at some facilities during the transition period. Additionally, The old vendor experienced a global malware incident in June 2017 that possibly resulted in the loss of some data in the system queue at that time.
ICD Coding between 2015 and 2016: The nationwide switch from ICD-9-CM to ICD-10-CM hospital diagnosis coding on October 1, 2015 disrupted trends for some diseases and conditions. Interpret trend data in this report with caution. Also note that New Jersey's data for October through December, 2015 was recoded to ICD-9-CM so that entire year of data was coded the same way.