Traditionally, occupational research has focused primarily on white men, even though women comprise 46% of the U.S. civilian workforce, and minorities are often employed in jobs with hazardous exposures. The OEEB has undertaken a number of epidemiologic studies with a substantial focus in occupation which include women and minorities during the past year. A telephone interview survey updating exposure information was completed in the Agricultural Health Study, a prospective cohort study of more than 90,000 subjects, including approximately 32,000 women and 2,000 minorities. Both direct occupational exposure and indirect environmental exposure to pesticides and other exposures are being evaluated in the study. The Shanghi Women's Study is a prospective cohort study of 75,000 women conducted by Vanderbilt University in collaboration with NCI and the Shanghai Cancer Institute. Blood/buccal cell and urine samples have been collected from nearly 90% of participants. The third biennial follow-up was completed in spring, 2006. Semi-quantitative exposure assessment to benzene based on industrial monitoring data maintained by the Shanghai municipal government has been completed, and analysis of cancer risk in relation to benzene exposure is ongoing. Exposure assessments for silica, lead, and chronmium are ongoing, and cancer risks will be evaluated as the exosure data become available. In addition, the association between passive smoking and cancers of the lung and breast are being evaluated in this mostly non-smoking cohort of women. Environmental risk factors for lung cancer among Chinese non-smoking women also are planned in a large case-control study in Xuan Wei, China. Data collection for this study is ongoing. The New England Bladder Cancer study, a large multicenter case-control study of bladder cancer is on-going to examine environmental and occupational risk factors and the reasons for the consistently elevated incidence and mortality of this cancer in New England. Field data collection in a hospital-based case-control study of kidney cancer with a major focus on occupational exposures has been completed in Central and Eastern Europe; data analysis of this study is ongoing. The U.S. renal cell cancer study is the first study of this cancer that included a sufficent number of African Americans for separate evaluation of their risks, and the contribution of environmental and occupational risk factors to the racial disparity in incidence of this cancer. Field data collection for this study has been completed, and data cleaning has started. NCI is leading the environmental sampling component of the California childhood leukemia case-control study. The approximately 40% Hispanic and 10% Asian participants in this study provide an opportunity to evaluate agricultural and other risk factors among these minorities. Data collection for the study is ongoing. To evaluate the role of cigarette smoking in relation to risk of esophageal adenocarcinoma, NCI investigators pooled questionnaire data from participating studies in a Barett's esophagus and adenocarcinoma consortium. The incidence of esophagel adenocarcinoma is rapidly increasing not only in white men, but also in white women and African Americans. The ongoing analysis is expected to shed light on the proportion of this emergent cancer that may be attributable to smoking in the various racial and gender groups.
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