Investigators: Anne Harris, Paul Demers, Loraine Marrett
Filed Under: Projects
Significance:
There are approximately 60 well-established workplace carcinogens. However, there are many more industrial chemicals and other agents that are suspected to cause cancer, and still more that have never been studied. Currently, Canada lacks any rapid means to assess whether there is an increased risk associated with an exposure or what the risk of cancer is among people with the same job or working in the same industry. The major challenge is that, although Canada collects very good information on every new cancer that is diagnosed, there is no way to identify where these patients worked. Having a way to link occupation and industry data to Cancer Registry data would allow researchers to identify jobs or substances that carry an increased risk of cancer.
Purpose:
The goal of this project is to test a new way to monitor and measure workplace risk factors for cancer, by linking occupation and industry data to the Ontario Cancer registry via records of WSIB claims.
Methods:
When workers make claims to the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) for time lost, their claims contain information on their occupations and industries. These claims can be linked to records of cancer diagnoses held by Cancer Care Ontario to compare risks of cancer for different occupations and industries. This project will adapt methods developed by researchers in Alberta and British Columbia and test how well linking the records will work in Ontario.
Implications:
Linking occupation and industry data to the Ontario Cancer Registry could allow researchers to investigate the cancer risk associated with exposure to previously unstudied industrial chemicals. It could also enable rapid assessment of the risk associated with various jobs in Canada, and highlight industries that require interventions to reduce exposure to workplace carcinogens.
Current status:
A grant funding application was submitted to the Ontario WSIB Research Advisory Council.
Investigators:
Anne Harris (Occupational Cancer Research Centre)
Paul Demers (Occupational Cancer Research Centre and Cancer Care Ontario)
Loraine Marrett (Occupational Cancer Research Centre and Cancer Care Ontario)
Mieke Koehoorn (University of British Columbia)
Christopher McLeod (University of British Columbia)
