TY - JOUR T1 - Introducing LTASR, a new R package based on the NIOSH Life Table Analysis System JF - Occupational and Environmental Medicine JO - Occup Environ Med DO - 10.1136/oemed-2022-108462 SP - oemed-2022-108462 AU - Stephen J Bertke AU - Kaitlin Kelly-Reif Y1 - 2022/09/19 UR - http://oem.bmj.com/content/early/2022/09/19/oemed-2022-108462.abstract N2 - For over 50 years, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has aided epidemiologists in the analysis of occupational cohort studies with the Life Table Analysis System (LTAS).1 LTAS simplifies person-year analyses, which is a central feature of occupational epidemiology research. LTAS is regularly used in occupational epidemiology studies to calculate standardised mortality ratios (SMRs). SMRs continue to be used in occupational epidemiology to compare the mortality experience of a cohort to a national or regional population. While there are limitations to SMRs, such as the inability to evaluate a dose–response association and bias towards the null from the healthy worker effect, SMRs remain an important tool in characterising the overall occupational experience of workers across different industries. SMRs are also an important surveillance tool in occupational and environmental settings. Many occupational cohort studies have used the NIOSH-LTAS system to conduct seminal research, such as a study of first responders to the World Trade Center disaster2 and a study of neurodegenerative … ER -