Traditionally, occupational research has focussed primarily on white men even though women comprise 46% of the US civilian workforce and minorities are often employed in jobs with hazardous exposures. During the past year, the Occupational Epidemiology Branch has undertaken a number of epidemiologic studies designed to evaluated the health risks associated with occupation among women and minority populations. Several studies on occupational factors and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma among women were completed in the U.S. and in Sweden. These studies showed no association between the malignancy and occupational exposure to sunlight or occupational physical activity. Follow-up is being extended on cohorts of aircraft maintenance workers and dry cleaners, which include a large number of women and minorities. A new prospective cohort study of diet, hormones, and occupation among 75,000 women, aged 40-69, from Shanghai, China was launched as a collaborative effort with the University of Minnesota. Enrollment in the prospective cohort Agricultural Health Study continued and is expected to result in more than 91,000 subjects including approximately 30,000 women and 2,000 minorities. Both direct occupational exposure and indirect environmental exposure to pesticides will be evaluated in the study. Analyses of prevalent cases of breast cancer are underway. Other studies are also underway on cancer among nurses, other health care professionals, and hairdressers and on the relationships between occupational exposures, particularly pesticides, solvents, and dusts, and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, multiple myeloma, and cancers of the pancreas, brain, and stomach in projects which include women and minorities. Feasibility projects were also conducted for the study of cancer among migrant farmworkers, the majority of whom are Hispanic. Questionnaires involving an innovative life events-icon method of collecting occupational histories were developed and tested as well as projects to test the ability to trace farmworkers over extended periods of time, to study mortality patterns, to evaluate cancer diagnosis and treatment patterns, and to add epidemiologic variables to a national data base of information collected from farmworkers who are applying for social services. Currently, we are developing interview methods and assessing pesticide exposure via biological measures among farmworker children. The materials and methods developed in the feasibility projects will help NCI and others to launch full-scale studies of cancer among this population.
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