Capture and coding of industry and occupation measures: findings from eight National Program of Cancer Registries states

“One future direction of I&O data collection could include the use of natural language processing in electronic health records, which has been successfully used to advance cancer care.(20) Another direction”

“Furthermore, an untried approach to addressing the previously mentioned gaps is the use of job exposure matrices, which assign occupational exposure levels based upon I&O data andmight be able to overcome some of the reported limitations of cancer registry I&O data.(17) However, the usefulness of job exposure matrices…”

“includes linkages of data between cancer registries and occupational registries as has been done to improve race and ethnicity data through linkages with Indian Health Services records.(21) In conclusion, while there are known associations between occupational and industrial exposure to cancer, the ability to explore…”

“Increased knowledge about occupations and exposures, however, is an important public health issue to protect workers and identify potentially harmful exposures.(3) The strengths of this study include the number of cancer cases and registries included, which reflect 27.”

“previous literature estimated that 2-8% of cancer may be attributable to occupational exposures, although the true burden may be higher.(5)”

“Finally, individuals from the National Cancer Institute have developed an algorithm called Standardized Occupation Coding for Computer-assisted Epidemiologic Research (SOCcer) that maps job titles into standardized occupation classification (SOC) codes, which may also be useful in epidemiological studies of occupation…”

“The NIOCCS coding scheme has been described previously.(12) The difference between the confidence levels assigned is based upon a number of factors including a word-swapped factor, synonym factor, and the weight associated with the process of autocoding.”

“As shown in the New Hampshire study, cancer registrars could improve their ability to routinely capture I&O data through training on standardization of placement of this information within the medical record.(15) Additionally, successful incorporation of I&O as structured data in electronic health records could improv…”

“significant difference between the percentages of auto-coded cases even though CML is related to occupational exposure and breast, colon, and rectum are not (data not shown).(19)”

“Often, these data may be missing, incomplete, lacking detail, and/or more likely to be ascertained in patients with cancers that have known association to occupational exposures (ie, differential misclassification).(9) Furthermore, coding I&O data manually is a time and resource intensive process that is prohibitive i…”

“Still, I&O data are often missing from state registry records, or are recorded in such a way that precludes assignment of standardized codes that are comparable and therefore usable for analyses.(7) A study of I&O availability (categorizing “retired” and “nonworking” as available) in the New Hampshire State Cancer Reg…”

“One of the most critical gaps is the lack of systematic collection of information related to occupation [9, 10].”

“In addition, state cancer registries, which provide limited insight into mesothelioma case numbers, do not routinely collect information about an individual’s occupation or exposure history [30].”

“However, field tests have demonstrated lower accuracy than NIOSH monitoring rates, and insufficient analyzable data for some records, indicating that improving the collection methods of employment and industry data, such as more targeted questions or better training of administration staff, could ameliorate the usabil…”

“One difference between occupational and community cancer investigations is the relative lack of data in the MCR about the occupation, industry, or employer of the patient (Freeman et al. 2017; Silver et al. 2018).”