What is black lung disease or coal workers' pneumoconiosis?

What is black lung disease or coal workers' pneumoconiosis?

Roy Artal (Pulmonologist and Critical Care Physician) gives expert video advice on: How does coal dust affect the lungs?; How is black lung disease prevented?; How common is black lung disease? and more...

Black lung disease is a lung disease which is caused by years of exposure to coal or carbon. This is most common obviously in miners, as we have all heard in the media and through books and movies and so forth. The people most at risk for coal minors' disease or coal workers' disease are people who work in underground mining. People who do surface coal mining or strip mining are at much less risk because there is much less ambient coal or carbon in the air that they breathe. It is really somebody who is underground, who is miles underground - literally inside a mine breathing these materials who is at much higher risk of developing these conditions.