Exploring the Use of Death Certificates as a Component of an Occupational Health Surveillance System

Our plain-English summary of Exploring the Use of Death Certificates as a Component of an Occupational Health Surveillance System, by T.M. Frazier, D.H. Wegman (1979).

The study

• Authors: T.M. Frazier, D.H. Wegman
• Published: American Journal of Public Health, Volume 69 No7. July 1979
• Type of article: Journal article
• Our copy: from Johns-Manville's own medical library. The article is still under copyright, so we describe it here rather than post it.

In plain English

This short report described a pilot study testing whether death certificates could serve as one part of a system for spotting work-related disease. The authors chose cancer of the trachea, bronchus and lung in young men as a warning-sign event. They reasoned that deaths at younger ages were more likely to reflect concentrated exposure. They obtained the death certificates of the 137 Massachusetts men aged 20 to 44 who died of this cause in 1974-76 and recorded the occupation and employer listed. Apart from the expected rise with age, no pattern appeared by age or by health service area. Four certificates listed commercial fisherman as the occupation. All four men were aged 35 to 39, making up 12 per cent of the 32 lung cancer deaths in that age range. For comparison, 1.3 per cent of all employed men aged 16 and over in the state's 1970 labor force fell in the census category combining agriculture, forestry and fisheries. The authors considered this a lead for further investigation. They concluded that more exploratory studies of death-certificate surveillance should be done. The article does not mention asbestos.

We wrote this plain-English summary from the full article with the help of AI, and a second AI model checked each sentence against the article. It is not the authors' wording; the abstract and the article are their own account.

What the study did and found

• Design: Pilot study of death certificates as a case-finding surveillance method, using lung cancer in young males as a sentinel health event
• Who was studied: 137 Massachusetts males aged 20-44 who died of cancer of the trachea, bronchus or lung (ICDA 162) in 1974-76; two of the deaths were cancer of the trachea
• Exposure: Occupation and employer as recorded on the death certificate; no specific fiber or substance was studied
• Main results:
  • Among the 137 deaths, no pattern was found other than the expected increase with age, and there was no pattern of total or age-specific lung cancer deaths by Health Service Area
  • Four death certificates listed commercial fisherman as the occupation; all four men were aged 35-39, accounting for 12 per cent of the 32 lung cancer deaths in that age range
  • For comparison, of all employed males aged 16 years and over in the state's 1970 labor force, 1.3 per cent were listed in the census in the combined category of agriculture, forestry and fisheries. This was not a figure for fishermen alone, and it was not limited to men aged 35-39.
• The authors' conclusion: The authors concluded that the method singled out commercial fishermen as a group calling for further investigation. They suggested that additional exploratory studies be carried out and, if these show promise, that states consider death certificate review as one component of occupational health surveillance.

Topics

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Death Certificate, Bronchus, Lung Cancer.

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