Grant: Project Grant

Workplace exposure to hazardous substances (such as asbestos, radiation, and some chemicals) is an important and preventable cause of disease in Canada. Exposure to occupational carcinogens alone leads to an estimated 9,700 to 10,400 new cancers each year in Canada. However, we do not know how the effects of these exposures might differ between men and women for two reasons. First, occupational studies have generally focused on male-dominated occupations and industries. As a result, women were not included in most of the available research studies until quite recently. Second, researchers did not anticipate that biological differences (physical size, hormonal differences, or how quickly a chemical can be cleared from the body) and sociocultural differences (which jobs and tasks we do, and which exposures were considered important) between men and women would have a large impact on occupational disease. Recent evidence tells us that both these factors (sex and gender) are very important to consider in occupational health research. In this timely, innovative project, we will develop tools to assess how sex and gender influence exposure to hazardous chemicals at work. Then, we will use these tools to examine differences in risk of three major occupational diseases (cancer, asthma, and dermatitis) between men and women in two existing Canadian disease surveillance studies. These novel results will help answer key questions about where men or women might be at different risk of disease from exposures they experience at work. We will generate new research questions that will contribute to efforts to reduce the burden of occupational disease among men and women in Canada.