Table 1 Demographic and behavioral characteristics of community controls (CC) and dairy workers (DW) from the Healthy Dairy Worker (HDW) cohort and participants from the Human Microbiome Project (HMP). p-values correspond to tests of equality of mean (continuous variables) or distribution (categorical variables) across dairy workers and community controls. Limited metadata (at the level of individuals) was made publicly available from the HMP participants, and has been denoted as n/a (data not available) where appropriate

Age (years)

    Mean (SD)

49.5 (10.7)

38.4 (8.0)

\(\text {26.5 (4.7)}^{**}\)

0.06

Body Mass Index

    18.5-24.9

0 (0%)

2 (20.0%)

\(\text {33 70.2\%)}^{\mathrm{a}}\)

0.41

    25-29.9

4 (66.7%)

4 (40.0%)

\(\text {10 (21.3\%)}^{\mathrm{a}}\)

    30.0+

2 (33.3%)

4 (40.0%)

\(\text {4 (8.5\%)}^{\mathrm{a}}\)

Current Smoker

    No

4 (66.7%)

7 (70.0%)

n/a

1

    Yes

2 (33.3%)

3 (30.0%)

Alcohol Consumption

    Never

1 (16.7%)

2 (20.0%)

n/a

0.15

    Rarely <1/week

4 (66.7%)

2 (20.0%)

    1-7 times/week

1 (16.7%)

6 (60.0%)

Dairy Consumption

    Rarely <1/week

1 (16.7%)

2 (20.0%)

n/a

1

    1-7 times/week

5 (83.3%)

8 (80.0%)

Vegetable Consumption

    Rarely <1/week

0 (0%)

1 (10.0%)

n/a

1

    1-7 times/week

6 (100%)

9 (90.0%)

Eggs Consumption

    Rarely <1/week

1 (16.7%)

2 (20.0%)

n/a

1

    1-7 times/week

5 (83.3%)

8 (80.0%)

Beef Consumption

    Rarely <1/week

3 (50.0%)

1 (10.0%)

n/a

0.23

    1-7 times/week

3 (50.0%)

9 (90.0%)

Chicken Consumption

    Rarely <1/week

1 (16.7%)

0 (0%)

n/a

0.79

    1-7 times/week

5 (83.3%)

10 (100%)

Lamb Consumption

    Never

5 (83.3%)

7 (70.0%)

n/a

1

    Rarely <1/week

1 (16.7%)

3 (30.0%)

Fish Consumption

    Never

0 (0%)

1 (10.0%)

n/a

0.59

    Rarely <1/week

3 (50.0%)

3 (30.0%)

    1-7 times/week

3 (50.0%)

6 (60.0%)

Occupation

    field worker

6 (100%)

0 (0%)

n/a

-

    dairy worker

0 (0%)

10 (100%)