Higher incidence of screening-related cancers in the employed population

Employment may confound the risk of a cancer diagnosis in both directions. We hypothesized that a higher baseline rate of employment among cancer patients may explain the lack of association between a cancer diagnosis and later unemployment in many studies.

To assess the unemployment rate among cancer patients before diagnosis compared with a matched cancer-free control group.

Using data from the Israeli National Central Bureau of Statistics 1995 census (persons aged between 15 and 60 years old), the Israeli Tax Authority database and the Israel Cancer Registry, cancer patients (diagnosed between the years 2000 and 2007 and alive at 2011) were compared with matched cancer-free controls.

There were 8797 cancer patients and 26166 cancer-free controls. We found that, in general, cancer was not associated with unemployment 2 years before diagnosis (adjusted odds ratio [OR] = 0.96, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.90-1.009, P = NS) after adjustment for age, gender, ethnicity, educational years and residential socioeconomic position. However, the diagnoses associated with screening (breast, prostate, colorectal and cervix cancers) were inversely associated with unemployment 2 years before diagnosis (adjusted OR = 0.90, 95% CI 0.84-0.97, P < 0.01).

The results from the current study suggest that a higher baseline rate of employment among cancer patients, mainly those who were diagnosed with screening-associated cancers, explains false negative results in previous studies assessing cancer survivors' work issues.