Occupational exposure to carcinogens in the European Union

Abstract

Objectives-To construct a computer assisted information system for the estimation of the numbers of workers exposed to established and suspected human carcinogens in the member states of the European Union (EU). Methods-A database called CAREX (carcinogen exposure) was designed to provide selected exposure data and documented estimates of the number of workers exposed to carcinogens by country, carcinogen, and industry. CAREX includes data on agents evaluated by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) (all agents in groups 1 and 2A as of February 1995, and selected agents in group 2B) and on ionising radiation, displayed across the 55 industrial classes. The 1990-3 occupational exposure was estimated in two phases. Firstly, estimates were generated by the CAREX system on the basis of national labour force data and exposure prevalence estimates from two reference countries (Finland and the United States) which had the most comprehensive data available on exposures to these agents. For selected countries, these estimates were then refined by national experts in view of the perceived exposure patterns in their own countries compared with those of the reference countries. Results-About 32 million workers (23% of those employed) in the EU were exposed to agents covered by CAREX. At least 22 million workers were exposed to IARC group 1 carcinogens. The exposed workers had altogether 42 million exposures (1.3 mean exposures for each exposed worker). The most common exposures were solar radiation (9.1 million workers exposed at least 75% of working time), environmental tobacco smoke (7.5 million workers exposed at least 75% of working time), crystalline silica (3.2 million exposed), diesel exhaust (3.0 million), radon (2.7 million), and wood dust (2.6 million). Conclusion-These preliminary estimates indicate that in the early 1990s, a substantial proportion of workers in the EU were exposed to carcinogens.

Trends and priorities in occupational health research and knowledge transfer in Italy

“…In the intervening years, the proportions have been debated and updated and vary with the tumor site and economic sector. For men, the estimates are 13-18% for lung tumors, 2-10% for bladder cancers, and 2-8% for laryngeal tumors (22)(23)(24) (25)(26)(27)(28).…”

Assessing Occupational Exposure to Chemicals in an International Epidemiological Study of Brain Tumours

“…However, due to the lack of an appropriate basis for estimating occupation-specific prevalence on the one hand and the lack of the data necessary to establish a reasonable estimate for level of exposure on the other, it was agreed that further work would be required to address this question. It would be extremely valuable to explore other sources of exposure data such as CAREX (Kauppinen et al, 2000) and the SYNERGY JEM (Peters et al, 2012) to fill these potentials gaps in FINJEM.…”

Classifying Open-Ended Reports: Factors Affecting the Reliability of Occupation Codes

“…The coding of occupation has many unique features compared to coding other types of open responses: coders must assign a description to one of hundreds of possible codes rather than just a handful, the open answers are short and factual rather than long and attitudinal, and occupation coders who make this their profession become very skilled. The data about occupation that are produced through the coding process are commonly used to study various phenomena occurring in the labor force, including sex segregation (Anker 1998), work-related injuries (Cawley and Homce 2003;Layne 2004;Reichard and Jackson 2010), health-related exposures (Kromhout et al 1993;Hammond et al 1995;Kauppinen et al 2000), wage inequality (Lettau 2003;Heywood and O'Halloran 2005;Bjerk 2007), mobility (Shniper 2005;Moscarini and Thomsson 2007), and occupational projections (Rosenthal 1992).…”