COMPARISON OF INFORMATION ON OCCUPATION AND LIFE-STYLE HABITS OBTAINED FROM EUROPEAN MAN-MADE VITREOUS FIBER PRODUCTION WORKERS AND THEIR RELATIVES

Background. Studies of the aetiology of fatal diseases often rely on d ata obtained from relatives, which can cause loss of precision and int roduce bias. We assessed the quality of such information on demographi cs, occupation, smoking and alcohol habits. Methods. We compared conte mporary interviews, based on a structured questionnaire, with male wor kers from the manmade vitreous fibre production industry in four Europ ean countries and their relatives. The participation rate was 63% (74 pairs of workers and relatives). Results. Only minor differences in th e ability to answer the questions appeared among workers and relatives , except for specific occupational questions. There was moderate to ex cellent agreement for demographics, residential and work history (kapp a or intraclass correlation range: 0.44-0.98). For smoking habits, bee r and wine consumption the agreement was good to excellent (range: 0.5 9-0.99). In particular, number of different residential areas, jobs, i ndustries, and duration of wine drinking were significantly underrepor ted by the relatives. No general determinant for reduced agreement app eared. Conclusions. In general, the quality of information obtained fr om relatives appeared good. However, information on specific occupatio nal exposures may be improved by supplementing the information from re latives with details obtained from colleagues, occupational hygiene ex perts or occupation-exposure matrices.