TY - JOUR T1 - Cancer risk among firefighters and police in the Ontario workforce JF - Occupational and Environmental Medicine JO - Occup Environ Med DO - 10.1136/oemed-2021-108146 SP - oemed-2021-108146 AU - Jeavana Sritharan AU - Tracy L Kirkham AU - Jill MacLeod AU - Niki Marjerrison AU - Ashley Lau AU - Mamadou Dakouo AU - Chloë Logar-Henderson AU - Tenzin Norzin AU - Nathan L DeBono AU - Paul A Demers Y1 - 2022/03/29 UR - http://oem.bmj.com/content/early/2022/03/29/oemed-2021-108146.abstract N2 - Objective Firefighters and police often work in high-stress, complex environments with known and suspected carcinogenic exposures. We aimed to characterise cancer incidence among firefighters and police.Methods The Occupational Disease Surveillance System (ODSS) was used to identify workers employed as firefighters or police in Ontario. A cohort of workers were identified using lost-time workers’ compensation claims data and followed for cancer in the Ontario Cancer Registry (1983–2020). Cox proportional hazard models were used to estimate HRs and 95% CIs for primary site-specific cancer diagnoses adjusted for age at start of follow-up, birth year and sex.Results A total of 13 642 firefighters and 22 595 police were identified in the cohort. Compared with all other workers in the ODSS, firefighters and police had increased risk of prostate cancer (firefighters: HR=1.43, 95% CI 1.31 to 1.57; police: HR=1.47, 95% CI 1.35 to 1.59), colon cancer (firefighters: HR=1.39, 95% CI 1.19 to 1.63; police: HR=1.39, 95% CI 1.21 to 1.60) and skin melanoma (firefighters: HR=2.38, 95% CI 1.99 to 2.84; police: HR=2.27, 95% CI 1.96 to 2.62). Firefighters also had increased risk of cancer of the pancreas, testis and kidney, as well as non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and leukaemia. Police had increased risk of thyroid, bladder and female breast cancer. When compared directly with the police, firefighters had an elevated risk of mesothelioma and testicular cancer.Conclusions Firefighters and police demonstrated some similar as well as some unique cancer risks. Findings from this larger worker population may have important implications for workplace and policy-level changes to improve preventative measures and reduce potential exposures to known carcinogenic hazards.Data are available upon reasonable request. Data may be obtained from a third party and are not publicly available. ER -