Occupational prestige, social mobility and the association with lung cancer in men

Behrens, T. et al. (2016) Occupational prestige, social mobility and the association with lung cancer in men. BMC Cancer, 2016(16), 395. (doi: 10.1186/s12885-016-2432-9) (PMID:27388894) (PMCID:PMC4936282)

Abstract

Background The nature of the association between occupational social prestige, social mobility, and risk of lung cancer remains uncertain. Using data from the international pooled SYNERGY case–control study, we studied the association between lung cancer and the level of time-weighted average occupational social prestige as well as its lifetime trajectory. Methods We included 11,433 male cases and 14,147 male control subjects. Each job was translated into an occupational social prestige score by applying Treiman’s Standard International Occupational Prestige Scale (SIOPS). SIOPS scores were categorized as low, medium, and high prestige (reference). We calculated odds ratios (OR) with 95 % confidence intervals (CI), adjusting for study center, age, smoking, ever employment in a job with known lung carcinogen exposure, and education. Trajectories in SIOPS categories from first to last and first to longest job were defined as consistent, downward, or upward. We conducted several subgroup and sensitivity analyses to assess the robustness of our results. Results We observed increased lung cancer risk estimates for men with medium (OR = 1.23; 95 % CI 1.13–1.33) and low occupational prestige (OR = 1.44; 95 % CI 1.32–1.57). Although adjustment for smoking and education reduced the associations between occupational prestige and lung cancer, they did not explain the association entirely. Traditional occupational exposures reduced the associations only slightly. We observed small associations with downward prestige trajectories, with ORs of 1.13, 95 % CI 0.88–1.46 for high to low, and 1.24; 95 % CI 1.08–1.41 for medium to low trajectories. Conclusions Our results indicate that occupational prestige is independently associated with lung cancer among men.

• Item Type: Articles
• Additional Information: This work was supported by the German Social Accident Insurance (grant number FP 271). Grant sponsors of the individual studies were the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and Guzzo-SRC Chair in Environment and Cancer; the Fondation de France; the German Federal Ministry of Education, Science, Research, and Technology and the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs; EC’s INCO-COPERNICUS Program; Polish State Committee for Science Research; Roy Castle Foundation; NIH/NCI/DCEG Intramural Research Program; Lombardy Region; INAIL and the European Union Nuclear Fission Safety Program; Italian Association for Cancer Research; Region Piedmont; Compagnia di San Paolo; Europe Against Cancer Program, the Swedish Council for Work Life Research and the Swedish EPA; the University of Oviedo; the European Regional Development Fund and the State Budget of the Czech Republic (RECAMO, CZ.1.05/2.1.00/03.0101); CIBERESP; and FISS-PI060604
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Conway, Professor David
• Authors: Behrens, T., Groß, I., Siemiatycki, J., Conway, D. I., Olsson, A., Stücker, I., Guida, F., Jöckel, K.-H., Pohlabeln, H., Ahrens, W., Brüske, I., Wichmann, H.-E., Gustavsson, P., Consonni, D., Merletti, F., Richiardi, L., Simonato, L., Fortes, C., Parent, M.-E., McLaughlin, J., Demers, P., Landi, M. T., Caporaso, N., Zaridze, D., Szeszenia-Dabrowska, N., Rudnai, P., Lissowska, J., Fabianova, E., Tardón, A., Field, J. K., Dumitru, R. S., Bencko, V., Foretova, L., Janout, V., Kromhout, H., Vermeulen, R., Boffetta, P., Straif, K., Schüz, J., Hovanec, J., Kendzia, B., Pesch, B., and Brüning, T.
• College/School: College of Medical Veterinary and Life Sciences > School of Medicine, Dentistry & Nursing > Dental School
• Journal Name: BMC Cancer
• Publisher: BioMed Central Ltd.
• ISSN: 1471-2407
• ISSN (Online): 1471-2407
• Published Online: 07 July 2016
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2016 The Authors
• First Published: First published in BMC Cancer 2016(16):395
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced under a Creative Commons License