NHS Digital Data Release Register

NHS Digital Data Release Register - reformatted

Institute of Occupational Medicine (IOM)

Opt outs honoured: N

Basis: Approved researcher accreditation under section 39(4)(i) and 39(5) of the Statistical Registration Service Act 2007

Format: Identifiable Sensitive

How often: Ongoing

When: unknown — 11/2016

HSCIC Id: DARS-NIC-323309-L2G9T-v0.0

Data: MRIS - Cause of Death Report

Data: MRIS - List Cleaning Report

Data: MRIS - Bespoke

Data: MRIS - Flagging Current Status Report

Data: MRIS - Scottish NHS / Registration

Data: MRIS - Bespoke

Output: There will be a peer-reviewed scientific publication of the UK analysis and at least one peer-reviewed publication for the international pooled analysis. These are expected to be published in the following journals;
• Occupational and Environmental Medicine
• Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine
• American Journal of Industrial Medicine
These are expected to be submitted for publication mid to late 2016.
Once the processing for this study has been completed, there will exist national and international data sets in relation to cancer incidence and mortality risks within the industry. It’s possible that the International Agency for Research on Cancer will revisit their classification of work in the hard-metal industry as a consequence of this study.

Activities: Institute of Occupational Medicine (IOM) aim to carry out an analysis of the mortality experience of workers in the hard-metal manufacturing industry. The mortality data will be linked to occupational histories for individuals within the study cohort in order to determine what role (if any) work in the industry may have had for certain causes of death that are of particular interest on the basis of previous epidemiological studies and toxicological data. IOM will calculate standardised mortality ratios using mortality data for England and Wales and the West Midlands for comparison and also compare mortality rates in those workers with higher exposures to those with lower exposures.
HSCIC will supply IOM identifiable mortality, latest demographic data and NHS de-registration data who will perform their analysis against the general population.
IOM will supply fully de-identified (as agreed with ONS and specified by CAG) data to the international study coordinators University of Pittsburgh. This will be month and year of birth and death and cause of death data. University of Pittsburgh does not hold any data for these individuals and therefore cannot re-identify this cohort. They will be supplied with a member number in order to check data quality with IOM only. The study ID number will be held electronically at IOM on a separate secure server which is only use for epidemiological studies involving sensitive personal data.
A nested case-control study of lung cancer is also planned to take into consideration the influences of lifestyle, such as smoking and employment in other industries. HSCIC will co-ordinate the consenting of this cohort. HSCIC will use the informants details supplied on the death registrations details (as agreed by ONS) to send consent material. IOM will only receive consented participants details. Once an informant of a member of the cohort who died from lung cancer has consented, IOM will conduct a short telephone interview to gather information on lifestyle and employment history of the case. For each of these cases, five controls will be contacted. The controls will be contacted via the HSCIC to either the GP if they are alive to ask for the consent material to be passed on, or via the informant on the death certificate.

Objective: At present there is no clear evidence that occupational exposures in the hard-metal manufacturing industry affects the risks of disease, such as lung cancer, or death. This study aims to assess the evidence for or against such associations, by comparing the death rates in those who have worked in the industry with those in the general population. It will also investigate whether death rates differ between those with lower and higher exposures arising from work in the industry.

Benefits: At present there is no clear evidence that occupational exposures in the hard-metal manufacturing industry affects the risks of disease, such as lung cancer, or death. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has classified this work in the hard metal manufacturing industry as ‘probably carcinogenic to humans’. Therefore it is now a priority to clarify whether exposure increases risk of cancer.
This study will identify whether there are any health risks from having worked in the hard-metal manufacturing industry in the UK or elsewhere.
On completion of this work, there will be a better understanding of whether work in the hard-metal industry poses a cancer risk, particularly for lung cancer, and if so what agents are implicated. This is the most definitive study of work in this industry ever undertaken and the results will influence and inform occupational health policy makers, including the Health and Safety Executive.
The results will directly influence the health and safety policies of the hard metal industry and the actions they will take will have a direct benefit for workers and reduce the burden on the health system.

Source: NHS Digital.