TY - JOUR
T1 - Availability and accuracy of occupation in cancer registry data among Florida firefighters
AU - McClure, Laura A.
AU - Koru-Sengul, Tulay
AU - Hernandez, Monique N.
AU - Mackinnon, Jill A.
AU - Solle, Natasha Schaefer
AU - Caban-Martinez, Alberto J.
AU - Lee, David J.
AU - Kobetz, Erin
N1 - Funding Information:
EK received funding for this work from State of Florida appropriation #2382A. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. We wish to thank the Florida State Fire Marshal’s Office for their participation and assistance with this study. These findings and conclusions are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position of the Florida Department of Health.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 McClure et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
PY - 2019/4
Y1 - 2019/4
N2 - Objectives Occupational exposures significantly contribute to the risk of adverse cancer outcomes, and firefighters face many carcinogenic exposures. Occupational research using cancer registry data, however, is limited by missing and inaccurate occupation-related fields. The objective of this study is to determine the frequency and predictors of missing and inaccurate occupation data for a cohort of career firefighters in a state cancer registry. Methods We conducted a linkage between data from the Florida Cancer Data System (1981–2014) and the Florida State Fire Marshal’s Office (1972–2012). The percentage and the odds of having a firefighting-related occupation code in the cancer record were calculated, adjusting for other occupation and cancer-related factors. Results Among 3,928 career firefighters, nearly half (47%) were missing a registry-dervived occupation code and only 17% had a firefighting-related code. Males were more likely to have a firefighting-related code (OR = 2.31;95%CI: 1.41–3.76), as were those with more recent diagnoses (OR1992-2002 = 2.98;95%CI: 1.57–5.67; OR2003-2014 = 11.40;95%CI: 6.17–21.03), and those of younger ages (OR45-64y = 1.26;95%CI: 1.03–1.54; OR20-44y = 2.26;95%CI: 1.73–2.95). Conclusions Accurate occupation data is key for identifying increased risk of advserse cancer outcomes. Cancer registry occupation fields, however, are overwhelmingly missing for firefighters and are missing disproportionally by sociodemographic and diagnosis characteristics. This study highlights the lack of accurate occupation data available for hypothesis-driven cancer research. Cancer registry linkage with external occupational data sources represents an essential resource for conducting studies among at-risk populations such as firefighters.
AB - Objectives Occupational exposures significantly contribute to the risk of adverse cancer outcomes, and firefighters face many carcinogenic exposures. Occupational research using cancer registry data, however, is limited by missing and inaccurate occupation-related fields. The objective of this study is to determine the frequency and predictors of missing and inaccurate occupation data for a cohort of career firefighters in a state cancer registry. Methods We conducted a linkage between data from the Florida Cancer Data System (1981–2014) and the Florida State Fire Marshal’s Office (1972–2012). The percentage and the odds of having a firefighting-related occupation code in the cancer record were calculated, adjusting for other occupation and cancer-related factors. Results Among 3,928 career firefighters, nearly half (47%) were missing a registry-dervived occupation code and only 17% had a firefighting-related code. Males were more likely to have a firefighting-related code (OR = 2.31;95%CI: 1.41–3.76), as were those with more recent diagnoses (OR1992-2002 = 2.98;95%CI: 1.57–5.67; OR2003-2014 = 11.40;95%CI: 6.17–21.03), and those of younger ages (OR45-64y = 1.26;95%CI: 1.03–1.54; OR20-44y = 2.26;95%CI: 1.73–2.95). Conclusions Accurate occupation data is key for identifying increased risk of advserse cancer outcomes. Cancer registry occupation fields, however, are overwhelmingly missing for firefighters and are missing disproportionally by sociodemographic and diagnosis characteristics. This study highlights the lack of accurate occupation data available for hypothesis-driven cancer research. Cancer registry linkage with external occupational data sources represents an essential resource for conducting studies among at-risk populations such as firefighters.
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U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0215867
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0215867
M3 - Article
C2 - 31039169
AN - SCOPUS:85065424792
VL - 14
JO - PLoS One
JF - PLoS One
SN - 1932-6203
IS - 4
M1 - e0215867
ER -
