This site uses cookies

Some of these cookies are essential, while others help us to improve your experience by providing insights into how the site is being used.

For more detailed information please check our Cookie notice


Necessary cookies

Necessary cookies enable core functionality. This website cannot function properly without these cookies.


Cookies that measure website use

If you provide permission, we will use Google Analytics to measure how you use the website so we can improve it based on our understanding of user needs. Google Analytics sets cookies that store anonymised information about how you got to the site, the pages you visit, how long you spend on each page and what you click on while you’re visiting the site.

The relationship between occupation and cancer: Evidence from Britain

Author: Lesley Rushton
Institution: Imperial College London
Type of case study: Research

About the research

The working environment should not be a place where there is a risk of disease or injury, yet many thousands of workers worldwide are exposed to hazardous substances at work every day. The detection of occupational hazards should therefore have a high priority in any programme of cancer prevention.

By estimating the burden of disease, we can more easily identify major risk factors and those populations that are more likely to get the disease. We can also make more informed decisions on priorities for reducing risk and better understand the nature of health inequalities.

This project is the first to quantify in detail the burden of cancer due to occupation specifically for Britain. It includes estimates for 23 cancer sites, over 40 occupational carcinogens and more than 60 industrial sectors. The results are being used by the Health and Safety Executive, employees and employers to inform and prioritise risk reduction strategies. The methods are being adapted in other countries and extended to include socio-economic impact evaluation.

More specifically, the project estimated the current burden of cancer for Britain due to occupational exposure to carcinogenic agents and/or exposure circumstances classified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer as definite (Group 1) or probable (Group 2A) human carcinogens; it also predicted the future burden under scenarios of exposure reduction. The results inform prioritisation of health and safety strategic planning.

Overall, 8010 cancer deaths (5.3 per cent of all deaths by cancer) and 13,598 cancer registrations could be attributed to occupational carcinogens or circumstances in 2005 and 2004. Important cancer sites are mesothelioma, sino-nasal, lung, naso-pharynx, breast, non-melanoma skin cancer and bladder. Key work-related carcinogens are asbestos, shift work, mineral oils, solar radiation, silica, diesel engine exhaust, coal tars and pitches, occupation as a painter or welder and dioxins. Approximately 56 per cent of cancer registrations in men occurred in the construction industry and 54 per cent of cancer registrations in women were due to shift (night) work. Without intervention, occupational attributable cancers are forecast to be over 10,000 annually by 2060.

Methodology

The measures of the burden of cancer used were the attributable fraction and numbers of deaths and cancer registrations. For each cancer/exposure pair, risk estimates (adjusted for confounders) were obtained from key industry-based studies, meta-analyses or reviews. The period of exposure relevant to the development of the cancer was assumed to be 10 to 50 years for solid tumours and 0 to 20 years for haematopoietic neoplasms before the year of estimation.

National data were used to derive the proportion of the population ever exposed to each carcinogenic agent or occupation, adjusting for staff turnover, life expectancy and industry-employment trends over this period. The future burden of occupational cancer was estimated by projecting risk exposure periods accounting for cancer latencies of up to 50 years forward in time for a series of forecast target years given past and projected exposure trends and under-targeted reduction scenarios.

Publications

This research has been published in the following journals:

Hutchings, S.J., Cherrie, J.W., Van Tongeren, M. and Rushton, L. (2012) ‘Intervening to reduce the future burden of occupationally-related cancers in Britain: what could work?’, Cancer Prevention Research, 5(10), pp. 1213-1222. doi: 10.1158/1940-6207.CAPR-12-0070

Hutchings, S.J. and Rushton, L. (2011) ‘Towards risk reduction: Predicting the future burden of occupational cancer’, American Journal of Epidemiology 173(9), pp. 1069-1077. doi: 10.1093/aje/kwq434

Rushton, L., Bagga, S., Bevan, R., Brown, T.P., Cherrie, J.W., Fortunato, L., Holmes, P., Slack, R., Van Tongeren, M., Young, C. and  Hutchings, S.J. (2010) Occupation and cancer in Britain’, British Journal of Cancer, 102(9), pp. 1428-1437. doi: 10.1038/sj.bjc.6605637

Rushton, L., Brown, T.P., Cherrie, J.W., Fortunato, L., Van Tongeren, M. and Hutchings, S.J. (2010) ‘How much does benzene contribute to the overall burden of cancer due to occupation?’, Chemico-Biological Interactions, 184(1-2), pp. 290-292. doi: 10.1016/j.cbi.2009.11.007

Rushton, L., Hutchings, S. and Brown, T. (2008) ‘The burden of cancer at work: Estimation as the first step to prevention’, Occupational and Environmental  Medicine, 65, pp. 789-800. doi:10.1136/oem.2007.037002

Full technical reports covering the methodology and results are available on the Health and Safety Executive website.