1. IDENTIFICATION & BASIC DESCRIPTION |
Cohort name
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The Lead Workers Study
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Country
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Name
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Malcolm Sim
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Institution
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Monash University
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Email
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Malcolm.Sim@monash.edu
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Personal website
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https://research.monash.edu/en/persons/malcolm-sim
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Do you want to add another Principal Investigator of the Cohort
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- Add another Principal Investigator of the cohort
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Name
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Geza Benke
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Institution
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Monash University
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Email
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Geza.Benke@monash.edu
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Personal website
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https://research.monash.edu/en/persons/geza-benke
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Name
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Ewan MacFarlane
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Institution
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Monash University
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Email
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Ewan.MacFarlane@monash.edu
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Personal website
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https://research.monash.edu/en/persons/ewan-macfarlane
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Website
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- https://www.monash.edu/medicine/sphpm/coeh/research/lead-workers-study
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Name of committee
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Monash University Human Research Ethics Committee
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Or provide website
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- https://www.monash.edu/medicine/sphpm/coeh/research/lead-workers-study
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Participation in pooled analyses
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- The cohort is potentially interested in participating in pooled analyses of (European) occupational cohort studies (note pooled analyses also includes remote decentralized analyses that would not require any transfer of primary data as well as meta-analyses).
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Main aim of cohort, please briefly describe the main objectives of the cohort
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The Lead Workers study investigates cancer and mortality outcomes in a cohort of lead workers who were collected from an occupational monitoring program conducted in the 1980s and 1990s.
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Study design (please select as many as appropriate)
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Source population (please select as many as appropriate)
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- Industry / occupation-based
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Comparators (please select as many as appropriate)
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- Internal study population
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Inclusion criteria
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4,000 former employees working in scheduled lead occupations, and who underwent routine lead biomonitoring between the 1960s and 1990s
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Enrollment
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Completed
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Age range at entry (subcohort)
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Minimum |
Maximum |
Mean |
Please describe |
18 |
65 |
35.9 |
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Men at enrollment
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4114
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Men at last follow-up
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4114
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Comments
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This was a retrospective cohort study involving workers who had worked in scheduled (targeted) lead occupations in the Australian states of Victoria and New South Wales (NSW) and had participated in the state government medical surveillance programs, which were compulsory to workers in specific occupations. The surveillance program was specific to lead-exposed jobs (“scheduled” occupations) outside the primary lead industry (e.g., lead smelting).
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2. OUTCOME FOLLOW-UP |
Type of data for outcome follow-up (please select as many as appropriate)
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- Death certificate
- Disease incidence records
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Death certificate (specify)
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- The list of lead workers obtained from the surveillance records was linked to death registries so as to identify cohort members who had died (including date and causes of death) prior to the date the linkage was undertaken.
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Disease incidence records (specify)
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- The list of lead workers obtained from the surveillance records was linked to cancer registries so as to identify cohort members who had a cancer diagnosis prior to the date the linkage was undertaken.
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First follow-up period (provide year)
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5 years
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3. OCCUPATIONAL EXPOSURES |
Source of exposure data collected (please select as many as appropriate)
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Occupational history/time frame
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Follow-up period
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Occupational coding performed
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No
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Types of exposure measurements
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Methods for exposure assessment (please select as many as appropriate)
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Main categories
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Main categories | Other | Specify: Other
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Lead exposure
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Comments
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Sources of Lead Exposure
All participants included in this study worked in jobs that were scheduled under state government health and safety regulations as being lead exposed jobs 14, 15. These included jobs with the following targeted occupational exposures:
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dust or fumes of lead arising from the manufacture or handling of dry lead compounds;
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manufacturing, assembling, handling or repairing of electric accumulators that involved the manipulation of dry lead compounds;
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pasting or casting of lead;
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breaking up or dismantling old, disused, or damaged lead accumulators and the sorting, packing, handling, or delivery of plates or other parts containing lead removed or recovered from such accumulators;
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spraying with molten lead or alloys containing greater than 5% by weight of lead; recovery of lead from its ores, oxides, or other compounds by a thermal reduction process;
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dry machine grinding, discing, buffing, or cutting by power tools containing greater than 5% lead by weight: and
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machine sanding or buffing of surfaces coated with paint containing greater than 1% lead of dry weight.
All workers in the Victorian and NSW programs had BLLs measured regularly in accordance with the regulations and it was the employers’ obligation to ensure workers were tested. Workers in high-exposure jobs or with previous high BLL results were subject to more frequent blood testing. Although testing was mandatory and the study cohort is comprised of workers who were tested by the state government monitoring programs, not all individual BLL test results survived in the archive records.
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4. OUTCOMES EVALUATED |
Baseline - type of outcome data collected (select more than one if applicable)
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- Biomarker (specify)
- Death certificates
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Specify: Biomarker
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Blood sample
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Follow-up - type of outcome data collected (select more than one if applicable)
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- Biomarker (specify)
- Death certificates
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Specify: Biomarker
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Blood sample
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Outcome type (please select as many as appropriate)
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Diagnostic groups based on ICD10
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C + D Neoplasms
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- Malignant neoplasms gastro intes. system including liver, gall bladder, pancreas
- Malignant neoplasm lung
- Malignant neoplasm of breast
- Malignant neoplasms of male genital organs
- Malignant neoplasm of urinary tract and kidney
- Malignant neoplasms of thyroid and other endocrine glands
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5. BIOLOGICAL SAMPLES & ANALYSIS |
Biological samples collected
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6. Other Information |
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- Demographics
- Medical history
- Smoking
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Possibility for linkage to data registries/data enrichment via data linkage
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- Cancer incidence
- Mortality register
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