Occupational noise exposure and the prevalence of dyslipidemia in a cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND: Occupational noise exposure was related to cardiovascular disease, of which dyslipidemia was an important inducement. This study investigated the relationship between occupational noise exposure and dyslipidemia. METHODS: Four hundred ninety-two occupational noise-exposed workers and 664 non-exposed workers were recruited to conduct environmental noise tests and personal occupational physical examinations. A lasso-logistic regression model was used to estimate the relative risk of dyslipidemia. A restricted cubic spline was used to estimate the association between noise exposure years and dyslipidemia after adjusting for potential confounding factors. RESULTS: A crude association was observed between the occupational noise exposure (75–85 dB(A)) and dyslipidemia. After adjusting for confounding factors, there was a non-linear relationship between noise exposure years and dyslipidemia (P for non-linearity =0.01). Workers exposed to 75–85 dB(A) for 11 to 24.5 years had a higher risk of dyslipidemia than non-exposed workers. CONCLUSIONS: A positive and non-linear exposure-response relationship was found in workers exposed to 75–85 dB(A) whose exposure years were between 11 and 24.5. Workers had the highest risk of dyslipidemia when exposed for 13.5 years. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12889-021-11274-x.