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Harmonizing work history data in epidemiologic studies with overlapping employment records
Jo Steinson Stenehjem1,2, Ronnie Babigumira1, Melissa C Friesen3
1Department of Research, , Cancer Registry of Norway, Oslo, Norway.
American Journal of Industrial Medicine
|March 29, 2019
Summary
This study harmonized overlapping employment data for Norwegian offshore workers. This systematic approach prepares work history for job-exposure matrix linkage, preventing overestimation of occupational exposures.
Area of Science:
- Occupational health
- Epidemiology
- Data science
Background:
- Work history data management is complex, especially with overlapping jobs.
- Accurate exposure assessment requires handling job overlaps to prevent overestimation before linkage to job-exposure matrices (JEMs).
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop and demonstrate a systematic method for harmonizing overlapping employment data.
- To prepare occupational work history data for linkage with JEMs in a case-cohort study.
Main Methods:
- A case-cohort study of 1825 Norwegian offshore petroleum workers involving 3979 reported jobs.
- Collapsing overlapping jobs within the same occupation category and splitting jobs across different categories.
- Weighting job durations by a factor accounting for overlapping job instances.
Main Results:
- Collapsing same-category jobs reduced the job count to 3295 (mean 2629 days/job).
- Splitting different-category jobs increased the count to 4239 (mean 2043 days/job), decreasing total duration by 10%.
- The harmonization method proved systematic and unbiased.
Conclusions:
- Overlapping employment data structures can be systematically harmonized.
- This preparation is crucial for accurate linkage to multiple JEMs.
- The demonstrated method ensures unbiased work history data for exposure assessment.
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