Estimating the effect of cumulative occupational asbestos exposure on time to lung cancer mortality: using structural nested failure-time models to account for healthy-worker survivor bias.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Previous estimates of the effect of occupational asbestos on lung cancer mortality have been obtained by using methods that are subject to the healthy-worker survivor bias. G-estimation of a structural nested model provides consistent exposure effect estimates under this bias.

Methods

We estimated the effect of cumulative asbestos exposure on lung cancer mortality in a cohort comprising 2564 textile factory workers who were followed from January 1940 to December 2001.

Results

At entry, median age was 23 years, with 42% of the cohort being women and 20% nonwhite. During the follow-up period, 15% of person-years were classified as occurring while employed and 13% as occupationally exposed to asbestos. For a 100 fiber-year/ml increase in cumulative asbestos, a

SUBMITTER: Naimi AI 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4457343 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature