A report published in the Journal of the Louisiana State Medical Society has found that the state of Louisiana “has more facilities that produce, process or use asbestos than any other state in the nation.” Researchers also found that between 1999 and 2008, per capita asbestosis rates in Louisiana were almost twice the national average across the United States.

According to the study, asbestos use in Louisiana has fallen drastically from its peak in the 1960s and 1970s. Asbestos consumption in 1999 was only 4% of its 1980 levels. Nevertheless, because it can take decades before workers who were exposed to asbestos develop symptoms, many individuals who worked with asbestos products when their use was commonplace are only down being diagnosed with mesothelioma, lung cancer, asbestosis or other diseases linked to asbestos exposure.

Workers in the state of Louisiana who may have regularly used asbestos products include those in the construction, railroad, shipbuilding, textile and automotive industries. Some of the most common asbestos jobsites in Louisiana include ships and shipyards, oil rigs, construction sites, oil refineries, trains, railyards, power plants and chemical plants.

Hospitalization rates for asbestosis were were higher-than-average in parishes located in the northeast part of Louisiana and in the state’s industrial corridor between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. Calcasieu parish—an industrial center and port located near the city of Lake Charles—had the state’s highest rate of asbestosis hospitalizations: 21.43 per 100,000 residents.

Hospitalizations for asbestosis in the state of Louisiana exceeded the national average every year between 1999 and 2008. Yet in spite of these rates, the number of new cases of mesothelioma and other diseases is expected to continue to remain high in the state as a result of workers who were exposed to asbestos on the job decades ago.