Purpose of review: New technologies continue to be introduced into the workplace and the environment. These novel technologies also bring in new hazards leading to evolving patterns of established occupational and environmental diseases, as well as novel conditions never before encountered. Recent findings: Many of these emerging conditions have appeared in media outlets or in the literature as case reports. These sentinel cases often serve as a warning sign for subsequent outbreaks.

This review will discuss environmental and occupational lung diseases and exposures from a global perspective. These diseases and exposures include environmental exposure to asbestos and lung diseases, accelerated silicosis in sandblasting jean workers, coal worker's pneumoconiosis in surface coal miners, heal...