Actualités cancérogènes

Telfer School of Management – Researchers examined how Ottawa-Gatineau residents perceive the health risks of radon exposure. They sought to determine what encourages and hinders residents to test their homes and when they felt the need to adopt appropriate preventive measures.
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Institute for Work and Health – Worksites can use different prevention methods to reduce silica dust exposure, including the wet method, local exhaust ventilation, and personal protective equipment. A team of researchers found a combination of all three methods can avert the highest number of lung cancer cases (107 cases per year). However, the most cost-beneficial approach is the wet method used in combination with local exhaust ventilation.
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European Journal of Public Health – The objective of this study was to develop a job exposure matrix (JEM) in order to provide summary information for the period 1996–2016 on the magnitude of occupational exposures to asbestos fibres in Italy after the ban. A total of 46,422 workers (86% male) were estimated to be potentially at risk of exposure to asbestos in the sectors of asbestos abatement.
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The Conversation – Air pollution contributes to as many as 9 million premature deaths worldwide each year. In a newly published study, researchers leverage newly available data that captures PM2.5 concentrations at more than 8.6 million distinct U.S. locations from 1981 through 2016. The results show that the neighborhoods and population groups that were most exposed to fine particle pollution 40 years ago – disproportionately low-income and minority communities – are still exposed to higher pollution levels.
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Scholarly and Research Communication – With 80 known and suspected carcinogens in its database and over 800 estimates of how and where Canadians are exposed, CAREX’s challenge has been to focus its efforts to achieve impact. A process model for identifying and prioritizing opportunities for knowledge translation was developed. A total of 54 impacts were tracked, including priority setting, cancer prevention research, implementation research, and policy and practice change.
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The Conversation – As the COVID-19 pandemic spreads around the world, vital N95 masks and other personal protective equipment (PPE) have been hard to come by, even for those who need them most. And it’s not just health care workers and other care providers who need PPE – especially those N95 masks, technically known as respirators. These devices are also vital to the safety of workers in a host of other industries, from building trades to agriculture.
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Chemical and Engineering News – The processing and use of asbestos-containing diaphragms by the chlor-alkali industry poses an unreasonable risk to the health of workers, the US Environmental Protection Agency concludes in a draft risk evaluation. The assessment, released March 30, also finds unreasonable risks to workers and consumers who process or use asbestos-containing sheet gaskets, brake blocks, aftermarket automotive brakes and linings, and other vehicle friction products and gaskets.
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American Journal of Industrial Medicine – This scoping review identifies occupational disease prevention strategies worthy of further exploration by decisionmakers and stakeholders and of future systematic evaluation by researchers. It also identified important gaps, including a lack of studies of precarious workers and the need for more studies that rigorously evaluate the effectiveness of interventions.
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Scientific Reports – Korean researchers performed a nationwide, whole-population census study to investigate the associations between ambient NO2, particulate matter 10 (PM₁₀) concentration and age-adjusted breast cancer mortality and incidence rates in females. They found that ambient air pollutant concentrations were positively and significantly associated with the breast cancer incidence rate. No significant association between air pollutants and the breast cancer mortality rate was observed except for PM₁₀.
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CBC News – P.E.I.’s Workers Compensation Board has reviewed and revised the rules for contractors removing asbestos from buildings during renovations or demolition. The changes include: new definitions of asbestos-containing materials; a requirement for daily air sampling outside of the work enclosure; expiration periods for contractor certification; new requirements for ventilation; and enhanced medical surveillance for asbestos abatement workers.
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France 24 – Researchers that compared global risk factors found that a ‘pandemic’ of air pollution shortens lives worldwide by nearly three years on average, and causes 8.8 million premature deaths annually. Eliminating the toxic cocktail of molecules and lung-clogging particles cast off by burning oil, gas and coal would restore a full year of life expectancy, they reported in the journal Cardiovascular Research.
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CTV News – A national study has found around half the homes in Regina, and around one-third of the homes in Saskatchewan, exceed Health Canada’s maximum acceptable level of radon. Evict Radon is a non-profit group of researchers whose latest research was published in Scientific Reports. Their findings show Saskatchewan as a problem area, and they are now trying to educate the public about the issue and are encouraging public participation in their research.
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Occupational and Environmental Medicine – This study provides a detailed analysis of the global and regional burden of cancer due to occupational carcinogens from the Global Burden of Disease 2016 study. The burden of cancer due to 14 International Agency for Research on Cancer Group 1 occupational carcinogens (including asbestos, silica, and secondhand smoke) was estimated using the population attributable fraction, based on past population exposure prevalence and relative risks from the literature. The results were used to calculate attributable deaths and disability-adjusted life years (DALYs).
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IARC – Starting with the latest trends in cancer incidence and mortality worldwide, this publication provides wide-ranging insights into cancer prevention based on the known causes of cancer, factors that determine how cancer develops, and the behaviour of different tumour types, and presents a broad scope of interventions to reduce the cancer burden from a global perspective, including addressing inequalities that affect cancer prevention.
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Journal of Medical Screening – Researchers identified variations in prostate cancer screening by occupation among men in Montreal, Canada. They found substantial disparities in prostate cancer screening by occupation, and that men in occupations where carcinogen exposures are more common are less likely to participate in prostate screening activities. The study authors note that this could be an important source of bias and should be accounted for in occupational studies of prostate cancer.
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