Latency analysis in occupational epidemiology

Allowance for prolonged disease induction and latency times is an important consideration in occupational epidemiology studies of cancer and other delayed effects of exposure. Two useful approaches for assessing prolonged induction and latency periods are (1) exposure lagging and (2) considering exposures only within moving time windows. The exposure weighting scheme proposed by Jahr2 to assess exposure burdens is another method that accounts for induction and latency, although not explicitly. These three approaches, which are shown to be special cases of exposure weighting, are illustrated with an analysis of lung cancer mortality among a cohort of workers from an asbestos textile plant.