Mortality among Icelandic seamen.

BACKGROUND

The aim of this cohort study was to evaluate the mortality of Icelandic seamen with particular reference to cancer deaths.

SUBJECTS

In all 27,884 seamen, both fishermen and sailors of the merchant fleet, who had been members of a pension fund between 1958 and 1986 were followed-up.

RESULTS

Most standardized mortality ratios (SMR) were greater than 1:1.26 for all causes, 1.13 for all malignant neoplasms, 1.80 for liver cancer, 1.19 for stomach cancer, 1.56 for lung cancer, and 1.21 for kidney cancer. The highest SMR was found for unknown causes, 3.16. There was no 'healthy worker effect'. For most causes of death latency time and mortality were strongly correlated. When analysing the relation between duration of employment and mortality a correlation was found for all-causes and for stomach cancer; however, this was not statistically significant.

CONCLUSION

Seamen have an unusual mortality pattern and the excess for unknown causes is a rare finding indicating a peculiar situation for this group. The excess of stomach and lung cancer was high but it was not convincingly related to duration of employment and thus a relationship to occupation cannot be confirmed.