I. Belletti et al., RETROSPECTIVE ASSESSMENT OF EXPOSURE BY EXPERTS - THE EXAMPLE OF FORMALDEHYDE, SOLVENTS AND MINERAL-OILS AMONG TEXTILE AND METAL WORKERS, International journal of epidemiology, 22, 1993, pp. 190000127-190000133
The validity of retrospective assessment of occupational exposure grea
tly depends on the amount of detail in the available information, an t
he knowledge of the specific industrial process by the experts, and on
the criteria adopted to define relevant exposure. These criteria are
difficult to standardize and are rarely made explicit in published rep
orts, which makes it difficult to interpret inconsistencies among diff
erent studies. In two ongoing case-control studies on kidney cancer an
d, respectively. malignant lymphomas, a detailed occupational history
was obtained and supplemented by 19 additional questionnaires, specifi
cally addressing industrial activities where the knowledge of job titl
e alone would have been insufficient for reliable exposure assessment.
One further questionnaire was used to collect details of task and env
ironment for all the other activities. These data are used to establis
h probability, intensity and frequency of exposure to 30 substances kn
own or suspected to be carcinogenic from previous studies. There are t
wo basic steps in the exposure assessment procedure: firstly, general
rules are defined for each job within each activity covered by specifi
c questionnaires; secondly the judgement is modulated according to the
detailed tasks, working conditions and environment. To illustrate the
process and to facilitate comparison with other studies, examples are
given for a few common exposures in the textile and metal industries-
the two most frequent economic activities in the study area-namely exp
osure to mineral oils, formaldehyde, aromatic solvents, chlorinated so
lvents and other organic solvents.