Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment & Health (Apr 2024)

Respirable crystalline silica and lung cancer in community-based studies: impact of job-exposure matrix specifications on exposure–response relationships

  • Johan Ohlander,
  • Hans Kromhout,
  • Roel Vermeulen,
  • Lützen Portengen,
  • Benjamin Kendzia,
  • Barbara Savary,
  • Domenico Cavallo,
  • Andrea Cattaneo,
  • Enrica Migliori,
  • Lorenzo Richiardi,
  • Nils Plato,
  • Heinz-Erich Wichmann,
  • Stefan Karrasch,
  • Dario Consonni,
  • Maria Teresa Landi,
  • Neil E Caporaso,
  • Jack Siemiatycki,
  • Per Gustavsson,
  • Karl-Heinz Jöckel,
  • Wolfgang Ahrens,
  • Hermann Pohlabeln,
  • Guillermo Fernández-Tardón,
  • David Zaridze,
  • Jolanta Lissowska Jolanta Lissowska,
  • Beata Swiatkowska Beata Swiatkowska,
  • John K Field John K Field,
  • John R McLaughlin,
  • Paul A Demers,
  • Tamas Pandics,
  • Francesco Forastiere,
  • Eleonora Fabianova,
  • Miriam Schejbalova,
  • Lenka Foretova,
  • Vladimir Janout,
  • Dana Mates,
  • Christine Barul,
  • Thomas Brüning,
  • Thomas Behrens,
  • Kurt Straif,
  • Joachim Schüz,
  • Ann Olsson,
  • Susan Peters

DOI
https://doi.org/10.5271/sjweh.4140
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 50, no. 3
pp. 178 – 186

Abstract

Read online

OBJECTIVES: The quantitative job-exposure matrix SYN-JEM consists of various dimensions: job-specific estimates, region-specific estimates, and prior expert ratings of jobs by the semi-quantitative DOM-JEM. We analyzed the effect of different JEM dimensions on the exposure–response relationships between occupational silica exposure and lung cancer risk to investigate how these variations influence estimates of exposure by a quantitative JEM and associated health endpoints. METHODS: Using SYN-JEM, and alternative SYN-JEM specifications with varying dimensions included, cumulative silica exposure estimates were assigned to 16 901 lung cancer cases and 20 965 controls pooled from 14 international community-based case-control studies. Exposure–response relationships based on SYN-JEM and alternative SYN-JEM specifications were analyzed using regression analyses (by quartiles and log-transformed continuous silica exposure) and generalized additive models (GAM), adjusted for age, sex, study, cigarette pack-years, time since quitting smoking, and ever employment in occupations with established lung cancer risk. RESULTS: SYN-JEM and alternative specifications generated overall elevated and similar lung cancer odds ratios ranging from 1.13 (1st quartile) to 1.50 (4th quartile). In the categorical and log-linear analyses SYN-JEM with all dimensions included yielded the best model fit, and exclusion of job-specific estimates from SYN-JEM yielded the poorest model fit. Additionally, GAM showed the poorest model fit when excluding job-specific estimates. CONCLUSION: The established exposure–response relationship between occupational silica exposure and lung cancer was marginally influenced by varying the dimensions of SYN-JEM. Optimized modelling of exposure–response relationships will be obtained when incorporating all relevant dimensions, namely prior rating, job, time, and region. Quantitative job-specific estimates appeared to be the most prominent dimension for this general population JEM.

Keywords