Assessment of the occupational cancer burden in Great Britain
A research team at Imperial College and the Health and Safety Laboratory have completed the first phase of an assessment of the occupational cancer burden in Great Britain.
The aim of this project was to produce an updated estimate of the current burden of occupational cancer for Britain. Estimates were made for carcinogenic agents or exposure circumstances that were classified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) as Group 1 or 2A carcinogens with strong or suggestive human evidence. Estimation was carried out for 2004 for mortality and 2003 for cancer incidence for cancer of the bladder, leukaemia, cancer of the lung, mesothelioma, nonmelanoma skin cancer (NMSC), and sinonasal cancer.
The proportion of cancer deaths in 2004 attributable to occupation was estimated to be 8.0% in men and 1.5% in women with an overall estimate of 4.9% for men plus women. Estimated numbers of deaths attributable to occupation were 6,259 for men and 1,058 for women giving a total of 7,317. The total number of cancer registrations in 2003 attributable to occupational causes was 13,338 for men plus women. Asbestos contributed the largest numbers of deaths and registrations (mesothelioma and lung cancer), followed by mineral oils (mainly NMSC), solar radiation (NMSC), silica (lung cancer) and diesel engine exhaust (lung and bladder cancer). Large numbers of workers were potentially exposed to several carcinogenic agents over the risk exposure periods, particularly in the construction industry, as farmers or as other agricultural workers, and as workers in manufacture of machinery and other equipment, manufacture of wood products, land transport, metal working, painting, welding and textiles.
Future work will address estimation for the remaining cancers that have yet to be examined, together with development of methodology for predicting future estimates of the occupational cancers due to more recent exposures. IOM will be closely involved with this further work.
Download copies of the report at... http://www.hse.gov.uk/research/rrhtm/rr595.htm