Occupational and Environmental Epidemiology Branch, Division of Cancer Epidemiology Genetics, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, Maryland.
Stewart Exposure Assessments, LLC, Arlington, Virginia.
Am J Ind Med. 2018 Nov;61(11):901-910. doi: 10.1002/ajim.22912. Epub 2018 Oct 6.
We developed a systematic, data-driven approach to estimate metrics of occupational exposure to lead to aid in epidemiologic analyses in a case-control study of kidney cancer.
Probability of exposure to ten lead sources was assigned using decision rules developed from an extensive literature review and expert judgement. For jobs with >50% probability of exposure, we assigned source-specific frequency based on subjects' self-reported task frequencies or means of subjects' job-groups and source-specific intensity estimates of blood lead (μg/dL).
In our study, 18.7% of employed person-years were associated with high (≥80%) probability of exposure to any lead source. The most common medium (>50%) or high probability source of lead exposure was leaded gasoline (2.5% and 11.5% of employed person-years, respectively). The median blood lead attributed to occupational exposure was 3.1 μg/dL.
These rules can aid in future studies after population-specific adaption for geographic differences and different exposure scenarios.
我们开发了一种系统的、数据驱动的方法来估计职业接触铅的指标，以帮助在肾脏癌的病例对照研究中进行流行病学分析。
使用从广泛的文献回顾和专家判断中得出的决策规则来分配十种铅源的暴露概率。对于暴露概率大于 50%的工作，我们根据受试者自我报告的任务频率或受试者的职业群体的平均值以及特定源的血铅（μg/dL）强度估计值来分配特定源的频率。
在我们的研究中，18.7%的受雇人年与任何铅源的高（≥80%）暴露概率相关。最常见的中等（>50%）或高概率的铅暴露源是含铅汽油（分别占受雇人年的 2.5%和 11.5%）。归因于职业接触的血铅中位数为 3.1μg/dL。
这些规则可以在特定人群适应地理差异和不同暴露情景后，为未来的研究提供帮助。
