Detection of emerging diseases in occupational health: usefulness and limitations of the application of pharmacosurveillance methods to the database of the French national occupational disease surveillance and prevention network (RNV3P)
- Vincent Bonneterre1,2,
- Dominique J Bicout1,
- Linda Larabi2,
- Cyril Bernardet2,
- Anne Maitre1,
- Pascale Tubert-Bitter3,
- Régis de Gaudemaris1,2
- 1Laboratoire Environnement et Prédiction de la Santé des Populations– TIMC, Université Joseph Fourier, Faculté de Médecine, Domaine de la Merci, 38706 La Tronche Cedex, France
- 2Service de Consultation de Pathologies Professionnelles, CHU Grenoble, France
- 3Inserm U 472, Hôpital Paul Brousse, Villejuif, France
- Vincent Bonneterre, Faculté de Médecine, Domaine de la Merci, 38706 La Tronche Cedex, France; VBonneterre{at}chu-grenoble.fr
- Accepted 1 June 2007
- Published Online First 29 August 2007
Abstract
Objective: To test data mining methods used in pharmacosurveillance in order to identify potential emerging disease–nuisance associations in the national occupational disease surveillance and prevention network (RNV3P) database.
Methods: Proportional reporting ratios (PRR) used in pharmacosurveillance were applied to detect disproportional reporting of disease–nuisance associations which are not compensated by the national social security system.
Results: The 24 785 reports of the RNV3P were grouped into 1344 different disease–nuisance associations reported more than twice, of which 422 did not give entitlement to compensation by the social security system. Among these associations, 162 were potentially emergent and generated a signal, of which eight associations involve cancer.
Conclusion: This work is the first stage of an exploratory investigation submitting the questions raised to experts and involving participants in the network in reflection on the hypotheses generated.
Footnotes
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Competing interests: None declared.
