This current surveillance system identified several established high-risk groups for lung cancer and could be used for ongoing surveillance of occupational lung cancer in Ontario.

ObjectiveIran ranks 173 out of 180 countries on an index of press freedom. The purpose of the study was to assess the psychological wellbeing of Iranian journalists and document the stressors encountered in their work.DesignA secure website was established and participants were given their unique identifying number and password to access the site.SettingNewsrooms in Iran and the diaspora.ParticipantsResponses were received from 114 journalists (76%) of whom 65.8% were living in the diaspora. The mean age was 37.8 years (SD = 7.30) and 57% male.Main outcomes measuresType of stressor and behavioural data: Impact of Event Scale-revised for posttraumatic stress disorder, Beck Depression Inventory-II for depression.ResultsStressors include arrest (41.2%), torture (19.3%), assault (10.5%), intimidation (51.4%) and family threatened (43.1%). Eighty nine (78.1%) journalists had stopped working on a story because of intimidation. Arrest, torture, intimidation and family threatened were associated with more intrusive and arousal PTSD symptoms (p < .01 to .001) and assault and intimidation with more depressive symptoms (p < .05). Almost a third of Iranian journalists regularly used barbiturates, with use correlating with symptoms of intrusion (p < .0001), avoidance (p < .01), arousal (p < .0001) and depression (p < .0001). 46.5% of Iranian journalists were not receiving therapy for their distress.ConclusionsThe findings, the first of their kind, provide data highlighting the extraordinary degree of danger confronted by Iranian journalists, their emotional distress in response to this and their proclivity to self-medicate with barbiturates.

Objective The Synergy project derived quantitative exposureresponse associations for five occupational lung carcinogens (asbestos, chromium-VI, nickel, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and respirable crystalline silica) and lung cancer in a pooled analysis of population based case-control studies. Considering a proportion of workers were exposed to more than one of these carcinogens, a joint effect on lung cancer risk is possible. Methods We estimated joint effects by including an interaction term between two occupational carcinogens in the logistic regression models that were developed for the Synergy project. Analyses were conducted with either both exposures dichotomized (ever vs. never exposed), or with one exposure on a continuous scale (cumulative exposure), and the other dichotomized. Analyses were conducted for all lung cancer subtypes combined and stratified by subtype. We applied a Bonferroni correction.Results We observed a negative interaction between occupational exposure to nickel and asbestos. The interaction effect was largest for the subtype of squamous cell carcinoma: ratio of odds ratios: 0.76 (95% CI 0.65-0.88), odds ratio of the joint effect: 1.40 (95% CI 1.26-1.56). No other interaction effects were statistically significant after correction for multiple testing. Analyses in which one of the exposures was included on a continuous scale resulted in similar results. Conclusion We observed little evidence for a statistical multiplicative interaction between most of the occupational carcinogens. The negative multiplicative interaction between asbestos and nickel was not explained by a high correlation between these exposures. Ignoring specific study specific matching criteria might have introduced some bias in the results. Large scale occupational disease surveillance has been challenging in many countries, with a few notable exceptions, such as the Nordic countries with their substantial record linkage abilities. We present initial results for lung cancer from a new Canadian Occupational Disease Surveillance System. Oral Presentation Disease SurveillanceThe surveillance cohort was created using data from Ontario, Canada time-loss workers' compensation claims 1983-2016 (96% for injuries) linked to cancer registry records. Follow-up was from first claim date until diagnosis, death, loss-to-follow-up or 2016. Hazard ratios (HRs) were calculated for each industry/occupation using Cox Proportional Hazard models, adjusted for year of birth and stratified on gender.The study population was 7 40 000 women and 1,430,000 men. Significant excess risks were observed in many of the a priori suspected occupations and industries, particularly in construction, mining, and transportation occupations. In addition, other relevant associations were observed among both women and men, such as for janitors and cleaners (men: HR=1.22, 95% CI=1.16-1.29, women: HR=1.22, 95% CI=1.13-1.32) and primary metals industry (men: HR=1.18, 95% CI=1.11-1.25, women: HR=1.20, 95% CI=0.89-1.60). Many sex-specific associations were ...