Assessing the contributions of the workplace and employment history, the local area, and individ...

Nicola Shelton, UCL, Wei Xun, University of Essex and Robert Hiatt, University of California San Francisco

(Project no. 1000187)

The aim is to identify predictors of cancer incidence and mortality using models which allow for their interaction and accumulation. Factors examined will include local area characteristics from childhood onwards and details of employment and occupation at each census.

This project is part of a larger, proposed cross-national programme of work being submitted to Cancer Research UK. The evidence for a socioeconomic gradient in cancer is mixed. Multiple factors operating inside and outside the workplace, at the individual and contextual level, are associated with cancer incidence and mortality. Unlike other diseases the gradient varies between different cancer types. Whilst there is evidence from longitudinal studies, the contribution of factors from early adulthood and even childhood has not been adequately considered.

Using prospective data from two UK studies including the ONS LS, we aim to assess the contributions of the workplace and employment history, the local area, and individual health and social factors from childhood and adulthood to cancer incidence and mortality. We seek to determine the factors that predict three outcomes: i) whether an individual experiences a cancer diagnosis, ii) a death from cancer, and iii) a cancer diagnosis followed by subsequent mortality.