RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Comparison of exposure assessment methods for occupational carcinogens in a multi-centre lung cancer case–control study
JF Occupational and Environmental Medicine
JO Occup Environ Med
FD BMJ Publishing Group Ltd
SP 148
OP 153
DO 10.1136/oem.2010.055608
VO 68
IS 2
A1 Peters, Susan
A1 Vermeulen, Roel
A1 Cassidy, Adrian
A1 Mannetje, Andrea 't
A1 van Tongeren, Martie
A1 Boffetta, Paolo
A1 Straif, Kurt
A1 Kromhout, Hans
A1 ,
YR 2011
UL http://oem.bmj.com/content/68/2/148.abstract
AB Objectives Retrospective exposure assessment remains a problematic aspect of population-based case–control studies. Different methods have been developed, including case-by-case expert assessment and job–exposure matrices (JEM). The present analyses compare exposure prevalence and risk estimates derived by different exposure assessment methods.Methods In the context of a case–control study conducted in seven European countries, exposure was estimated for asbestos, diesel motor emissions (DME) and crystalline silica, using three different assessment methods. First, experts assigned exposures to all reported jobs on a case-by-case basis. Second, a population-specific JEM (PSJEM) was developed using the expert assessments of controls only, and re-applied to all study subjects. Third, an independent general population JEM (GPJEM) was created by occupational exposure experts not involved in the original study, and applied to study subjects. Results from these methods were compared.Results There was poor to fair agreement in assigned exposure between expert assessment and the GPJEM (kappas: asbestos 0.17; DME 0.48; silica 0.38). Exposure prevalence was significantly heterogeneous (p<0.01) between countries for all three agents and assessment methods. For asbestos and DME, significant country heterogeneity in risk estimates was observed when using expert assessment. When applying the GPJEM, the heterogeneity in risk estimates for asbestos and, to some extent, silica diminished.Conclusions It has been previously advocated that the expert assessment approach to assign exposures based on detailed questionnaire responses provides more accurate exposure estimates than JEM-based results. However, current results demonstrated little, if any, advantage of case-by-case assessment when compared to a JEM approach.